431 U.S. 434 (1977)

TRAINOR, DIRECTOR, ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC AID, ET AL.
v.
HERNANDEZ ET UX.

No. 75-1407.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued January 18, 1977. Decided May 31, 1977. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS.

*435 Paul J. Bargiel, Assistant Attorney General of Illinois, argued the cause for appellants. With him on the briefs were William J. Scott, Attorney General, and Stephen R. Swofford, Assistant Attorney General.

John Dienner III argued the cause for appellees Finley et al. in support of appellants. With him on the briefs were Bernard Carey and Paul P. Biebel, Jr.

Fred L. Lieb argued the cause for appellees Hernandez et ux. With him on the brief were Alan Dockterman, James O. Latturner, and Sheldon Roodman.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA) filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., on October 30, 1974, against appellees Juan and Maria Hernandez, alleging that they had fraudulently concealed assets while applying for and receiving public assistance. Such conduct is a crime under Illinois law, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 23, § 11-21 (1973). The IDPA, however, proceeded civilly and sought only return of the money alleged to have been wrongfully *436 received. The IDPA simultaneously instituted an attachment proceeding against appellees' property. Pursuant to the Illinois Attachment Act, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 11 (1973) (Act), the IDPA filed an affidavit setting forth the nature and amount of the underlying claim and alleging that the appellees had obtained money from the IDPA by fraud.^[1] The writ of attachment was issued automatically^[2] by the clerk of the court upon receipt of this affidavit.^[3] The writ *437 was then given to the sheriff who executed it, on November 5, 1974, on money belonging to appellees in a credit union. Appellees received notice of the attachment, freezing their money in the credit union, on November 8, 1974, when they received the writ, the complaint, and the affidavit in support of the writ. The writ indicated a return date for the attachment proceeding of November 18, 1974.^[4] Appellees appeared in court on November 18, 1974, and were informed that the matter would be continued until December 19, 1974. Appellees never filed an answer either to the attachment or to the underlying complaint.^[5] They did not seek a prompt hearing, *438 nor did they attempt to quash the attachment on the ground that the procedures surrounding its issuance rendered it and the Act unconstitutional. Instead appellees filed the instant lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 2, 1974, seeking, inter alia, return of the attached money. The federal complaint alleged that the appellees' property had been attached pursuant to the Act and that the Act was unconstitutional in that it provided for the deprivation of debtors' property without due process of law. Appellees as plaintiffs sought to represent a class of those "who have had or may have their property attached without notice or hearing upon the creditor's mere allegation of fraudulent conduct pursuant to the Illinois Attachment Act." App. 6-7. They named as defendants appellants Trainor and O'Malley, officials of the IDPA, and sought declaration of a defendant class made up of all the court clerks in the Circuit Courts of Illinois, and of another defendant class of all sheriffs in Illinois. They sought an injunction against Trainor and O'Malley forbidding them to seek attachments under the Act and an injunction against the clerks and sheriffs forbidding them to issue or serve writs of attachment under the Act. Appellees also sought preliminary relief in the form of an order directing the Sheriff of Cook County to release the property which had been attached. Finally, appellees sought the convening of a three-judge court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2284.

The District Court declined to rule on the request for preliminary relief because the parties had agreed that one-half of the money in the credit union would be returned. A three-judge court was convened. It certified the suit as a plaintiff and defendant class action as appellees had requested. App. 63. In an opinion dated December 19, 1975, almost one year after the return date of the attachment in state court, it *439 declined to dismiss the case under the doctrine of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975), stating:

"In Huffman, the State of Ohio proceeded under a statute which gave an exclusive right of action to the state. By contrast, the Illinois Attachment Act provides a cause of action for any person, public or private. It is mere happenstance that the State of Illinois was the petitioner in this attachment proceeding. It is likewise coincidental that the pending state proceedings may arguably be quasi-criminal in nature; under the Illinois Attachment Act, they need not be. These major distinctions preclude this Court from extending the principles of Younger, based on considerations of equity, comity and federalism, beyond the quasi-criminal situation set forth in Huffman." Hernandez v. Danaher, 405 F. Supp. 757, 760 (1975).

Proceeding to the merits, it held §§ 1, 2, 2a, 6, 8, 10, and 14 of the Act to be "on [their face] patently violative of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." 405 F. Supp., at 762. It ordered the clerk of the court and the Sheriff of Cook County to return to appellees the rest of their attached property; it enjoined all clerks and all sheriffs from issuing or serving attachment writs pursuant to the Act and ordered them to release any currently held attached property to its owner; and it enjoined appellants Trainor and O'Malley from authorizing applications for attachment writs pursuant to the Act. App. 65-66. Appellants appealed to this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, claiming that under Younger and Huffman principles the District Court should have dismissed the suit without passing on the constitutionality of the Act and that the Act is in any event constitutional.^[6] Since we agree with appellants that Younger and *440 Huffman principles do apply here, we do not reach their second claim.

Because our federal and state legal systems have overlapping jurisdiction and responsibilities, we have frequently inquired into the proper role of a federal court, in a case pending before it and otherwise within its jurisdiction, when litigation between the same parties and raising the same issues is or apparently soon will be pending in a state court. More precisely, when a suit is filed in a federal court challenging the constitutionality of a state law under the Federal Constitution and seeking to have state officers enjoined from enforcing it, should the federal court proceed to judgment when it appears that the State has already instituted proceedings in the state court to enforce the challenged statute against the federal plaintiff and the latter could tender and have his federal claims decided in the state court?

Younger v. Harris, supra, and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971), addressed these questions where the already pending state proceeding was a criminal prosecution and the federal plaintiff sought to invalidate the statute under which the state prosecution was brought. In these circumstances, the Court ruled that the Federal District Court should issue neither a declaratory judgment nor an injunction but should dismiss the case. The first justification the Court gave for this rule was simply the "basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act, and particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not *441 suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief." Younger v. Harris, supra, at 43-44.

Beyond the accepted rule that equity will ordinarily not enjoin the prosecution of a crime, however, the Court voiced a "more vital consideration," 401 U. S., at 44, namely, that in a Union where both the States and the Federal Government are sovereign entities, there are basic concerns of federalism which counsel against interference by federal courts, through injunctions or otherwise, with legitimate state functions, particularly with the operation of state courts. Relying on cases that declared that courts of equity should give "scrupulous regard [to] the rightful independence of state governments," Beal v. Missouri Pacific R. Co., 312 U. S. 45, 50 (1941), the Court held, that in this intergovernmental context, the two classic preconditions for the exercise of equity jurisdiction assumed new dimensions. Although the existence of an adequate remedy at law barring equitable relief normally would be determined by inquiring into the remedies available in the federal rather than in the state courts, Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293, 297 (1943), here the inquiry was to be broadened to focus on the remedies available in the pending state proceeding. "`The accused should first set up and rely upon his defense in the state courts, even though this involves a challenge of the validity of some statute, unless it plainly appears that this course would not afford adequate protection.'" Younger v. Harris, supra, at 45, quoting Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240, 243-244 (1926). Dismissal of the federal suit "naturally presupposes the opportunity to raise and have timely decided by a competent state tribunal the federal issues involved." Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U. S. 564, 577 (1973). "The policy of equitable restraint . . . is founded on the premise that ordinarily a pending state prosecution provides the accused a fair and sufficient opportunity for vindication of federal constitutional rights." Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U. S. 117, 124 (1975).

*442 The Court also concluded that the other precondition for equitable relief—irreparable injury—would not be satisfied unless the threatened injury was both great and immediate. The burden of conducting a defense in the criminal prosecution was not sufficient to warrant interference by the federal courts with legitimate state efforts to enforce state laws; only extraordinary circumstances would suffice.^[7] As the *443 Court later explained, to restrain a state proceeding that afforded an adequate vehicle for vindicating the federal plaintiff's constitutional rights "would entail an unseemly failure to give effect to the principle that state courts have the solemn responsibility equally with the federal courts" to safeguard constitutional rights and would "reflec[t] negatively upon the state court's ability" to do so. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 460-461, 462 (1974). The State would be prevented not only from "effectuating its substantive policies, but also from continuing to perform the separate function of providing a forum competent to vindicate any constitutional objections interposed against those policies." Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S., at 604.

Huffman involved the propriety of a federal injunction against the execution of a judgment entered in a pending state-court suit brought by the State to enforce a nuisance statute. Although the state suit was a civil rather than a criminal proceeding, Younger principles were held to require dismissal of the federal suit. Noting that the State was a party to the nuisance proceeding and that the nuisance statute was "in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes," the Court concluded that a federal injunction would be "an offense to the State's interest in the nuisance litigation [which] is likely to be every bit as great as it would be were this a criminal proceeding." 420 U. S., at 604. Thus, while the traditional maxim that equity will not enjoin a criminal prosecution strictly speaking did not apply to the nuisance proceeding in Huffman, the "`more vital consideration'" of comity, id., at 601, quoting Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S., at 44, counseled restraint as strongly in the context of the pending state civil enforcement action as in the context of a pending criminal proceeding. In these circumstances, it was proper that the federal court stay its hand.

We have recently applied the analysis of Huffman to proceedings similar to state civil enforcement actions—judicial *444 contempt proceedings. Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327 (1977). The Court again stressed the "more vital consideration" of comity underlying the Younger doctrine and held that the state interest in vindicating the regular operation of its judicial system through the contempt process—whether that process was labeled civil, criminal, or quasi-criminal—was sufficiently important to preclude federal injunctive relief unless Younger standards were met.

These cases control here. An action against appellees was pending in state court when they filed their federal suit. The state action was a suit by the State to recover from appellees welfare payments that allegedly had been fraudulently obtained. The writ of attachment issued as part of that action. The District Court thought that Younger policies were irrelevant because suits to recover money and writs of attachment were available to private parties as well as the State; it was only because of the coincidence that the State was a party that the suit was "arguably" in aid of the criminal law. But the fact remains that the State was a party to the suit in its role of administering its public-assistance programs. Both the suit and the accompanying writ of attachment were brought to vindicate important state policies such as safeguarding the fiscal integrity of those programs. The state authorities also had the option of vindicating these policies through criminal prosecutions. See supra, at 435. Although, as in Juidice, the State's interest here is "[p]erhaps . . . not quite as important as is the State's interest in the enforcement of its criminal laws . . . or even its interest in the maintenance of a quasi-criminal proceeding . . . ," 430 U. S., at 335, the principles of Younger and Huffman are broad enough to apply to interference by a federal court with an ongoing civil enforcement action such as this, brought by the State in its sovereign capacity.^[8]

*445 For a federal court to proceed with its case rather than to remit appellees to their remedies in a pending state enforcement suit would confront the State with a choice of engaging in duplicative litigation, thereby risking a temporary federal injunction, or of interrupting its enforcement proceedings pending decision of the federal court at some unknown time in the future. It would also foreclose the opportunity of the state court to construe the challenged statute in the face of the actual federal constitutional challenges that would also be pending for decision before it, a privilege not wholly shared by the federal courts. Of course, in the case before us the *446 state statute was invalidated and a federal injunction prohibited state officers from using or enforcing the attachment statute for any purpose. The eviscerating impact on many state enforcement actions is readily apparent.^[9] This disruption of suits by the State in its sovereign capacity, when combined with the negative reflection on the State's ability to adjudicate federal claims that occurs whenever a federal court enjoins a pending state proceeding, leads us to the conclusion that the interests of comity and federalism on which Younger and Samuels v. Mackell primarily rest apply in full force here. The pendency of the state-court action called for restraint by the federal court and for the dismissal of appellees' complaint unless extraordinary circumstances were present warranting federal interference or unless their state remedies were inadequate to litigate their federal due process claim.

No extraordinary circumstances warranting equitable relief were present here. There is no suggestion that the pending state action was brought in bad faith or for the purpose of harassing appellees. It is urged that this case comes within the exception that we said in Younger might exist where a *447 state statute is "`flagrantly and patently violative of express constitutional prohibitions in every clause, sentence and paragraph, and in whatever manner and against whomever an effort might be made to apply it.'" 401 U. S., at 53-54, quoting Watson v. Buck, 313 U. S. 387, 402 (1941). Even if such a finding was made below, which we doubt (see supra, at 439), it would not have been warranted in light of our cases. Compare North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc., 419 U. S. 601 (1975), with Mitchell v. W. T. Grant Co., 416 U. S. 600 (1974).

As for whether appellees could have presented their federal due process challenge to the attachment statute in the pending state proceeding, that question, if presented below, was not addressed by the District Court, which placed its rejection of Younger and Huffman on broader grounds. The issue is heavily laden with local law, and we do not rule on it here in the first instance.^[10]

The grounds on which the District Court refused to apply the principles of Younger and Huffman were infirm; it was therefore error, on those grounds, to entertain the action on behalf of either the named or the unnamed plaintiffs and to reach the issue of the constitutionality of the Illinois attachment statute.^[11]

The judgment is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded *448 to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART substantially agrees with the views expressed in the dissenting opinions of MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN and MR. JUSTICE STEVENS. Accordingly, he respectfully dissents from the opinion and judgment of the Court.

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring.

I join the Court's opinion and write only to stress that the substantiality of the State's interest in its proceeding has been an important factor in abstention cases under Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), from the beginning. In discussing comity, the Court in Younger clearly indicated that both federal and state interests had to be taken into account:

"The concept does not mean blind deference to `States' Rights' any more than it means centralization of control over every important issue in our National Government and its courts. The Framers rejected both these courses. What the concept does represent is a system in which there is sensitivity to the legitimate interests of both State and National Governments, and in which the National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States." Id., at 44.

Consistently with this requirement of balancing the federal and state interests, the Court in previous Younger cases has imposed a requirement that the State must show that it has an important interest to vindicate in its own courts before the federal court must refrain from exercising otherwise proper federal jurisdiction. In Younger itself, the Court relied on the State's vital concern in the administration of its criminal laws. In Huffman v. Pursue, Inc., 420 U. S. 592 (1975), the *449 Court stressed the fact that it dealt with a quasi-criminal state proceeding to which the State was a party. The proceeding was both in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes. Thus, the State's underlying policy interest in the litigation was deemed to be as great as the interest found in Younger. Similarly, in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327 (1977), the Court found that the State's interest in its contempt procedures was substantial.

In cases where the State's interest has been more attenuated, the Court has refused to order Younger abstention. Thus, in Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), in which a state prosecution was merely threatened, the federal court was free to reach the merits of the claim for a declaratory judgment. Id., at 462. In such a case, "the opportunity for adjudication of constitutional rights in a federal forum, as authorized by the Declaratory Judgment Act, becomes paramount." Ellis v. Dyson, 421 U. S. 426, 432 (1975). See generally Kanowitz. Deciding Federal Law Issues in Civil Proceedings: State Versus Federal Trial Courts, 3 Hastings Const. L. Q. 141 (1976).

Application of these principles to the instant case leads me to agree with the Court's order reversing and remanding the case. Like the Court, I am satisfied that a state proceeding was pending. Ante, at 444, 446 n. 9. I, too, find significant the fact that the State was a party in its sovereign capacity to both the state suit and the federal suit. Ante, at 444. Here, I emphasize the importance of the fact that the state interest in the pending state proceeding was substantial. In my view, the fact that the State had the option of proceeding either civilly or criminally to impose sanctions for a fraudulent concealment of assets while one applies for and receives public assistance demonstrates that the underlying state interest is of the same order of importance as the interests in Younger and Huffman. The propriety of abstention should not depend on the State's choice to vindicate its interests by a less drastic, and perhaps more lenient, *450 route. In addition, as the Court notes, the state-court proceeding played an important role in safeguarding the fiscal integrity of the public assistance programs. Since the benefits of the recovery of fraudulently obtained funds are enjoyed by all the taxpayers of the State, it is reasonable to recognize a distinction between the State's status as creditor and the status of private parties using the same procedures.

For me, the existence of the foregoing factors brings this case squarely within the Court's prior Younger abstention rulings.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.

The Court continues on, to me, the wholly improper course of extending Younger principles to deny a federal forum to plaintiffs invoking 42 U. S. C. § 1983 for the decision of meritorious federal constitutional claims when a civil action that might entertain such claims is pending in a state court. Because I am of the view that the decision patently disregards Congress' purpose in enacting § 1983—to open federal courts to the decision of such claims without regard to the pendency of such state civil actions—and because the decision indefensibly departs from prior decisions of this Court, I respectfully dissent.

I

An attachment proceeding against appellees' credit union savings was instituted by the Illinois Department of Public Aid (IDPA) under the Illinois Attachment Act simultaneously with the filing of a civil lawsuit in state court for the recovery of public welfare funds allegedly fraudulently obtained. The attachment was initiated when IDPA filled in the blanks on a standard-form "Affidavit for Attachment" stating:

"The defendants Juan and Maria Hernandez within two years preceding the filing of this affidavit fraudulently *451 concealed or disposed of property so as to hinder or delay their creditors." (Italics indicate matter inserted in blanks by IDPA.) App. 18.

The wording of the affidavit repeats almost verbatim the language of the Illinois Act,^[1] and provides no underlying factual allegations upon which a determination can be made whether the conclusion of fraudulent concealment or disposition of property is justified.^[2] The writ of attachment was issued as a matter of course by the clerk of the court upon receipt of the affidavit, and the writ was executed on November 5, 1974.

Appellees appeared in state court on the return date, November 18, 1974, and were informed that the hearing on *452 the validity of the attachment was continued until December 19, 1974. In the meantime appellees—deprived of the use of their savings—faced pending rent and car repair bills, and past due electricity, gas, and telephone bills. On December 2, appellees filed a complaint under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in Federal District Court seeking a declaratory judgment and an injunction against enforcement of the Illinois Attachment Act. On December 5, two weeks before the continued state-court hearing, appellees sought a temporary restraining order to release their credit union savings from the custody of the sheriff. The District Court effected an agreement between the parties whereby IDPA agreed to the release of one-half of the attached funds, and accordingly did not act on the motion for the temporary restraining order.^[3]

A three-judge District Court was convened. The District Court found that it was not required to abstain from deciding the constitutional merits of appellees' challenge, and enjoined the enforcement of the Act on the ground that the Act was "patently and flagrantly violative of the constitution." Hernandez v. Danaher, 405 F. Supp. 757, 760 (ND Ill. 1975). This Court reverses and holds that the District Court should have dismissed the suit, thus continuing the course initiated in Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U. S. 592 (1975), and furthered this Term in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S. 327 (1977), of extending Younger principles to pending civil actions.

*453 II

I have already set out at some length the reasons for my disagreement with the Court's extension of Younger abstention principles to civil cases, particularly actions under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., supra, at 613 (dissenting opinion), Juidice v. Vail, supra, at 341 (dissenting opinion), and will not repeat them here. The Court suggests that this case, like Huffman, involves a statute enacted in aid of the criminal law. In Huffman, the State of Ohio brought a statutory nuisance suit in state court to close a theater that had previously been adjudged to have shown obscene films. Huffman stated, in words quoted by the Court today, that the nuisance proceeding "was `in aid of and closely related to criminal statutes.'" Ante, at 443. The Court states the precise question in this case to be:

"[S]hould the federal court proceed to judgment when it appears that the State has already instituted proceedings in the state court to enforce the challenged statute against the federal plaintiff and the latter could tender and have his federal claims decided in the state court?" Ante, at 440.

Emphasizing that the State sued in state court to "vindicate important state policies," the Court concludes that "the principles of Younger and Huffman are broad enough to apply to interference by a federal court with an ongoing civil enforcement action such as this, brought by the State in its sovereign capacity." Ante, at 444.

In framing the question and its answer this narrowly, the Court apparently desires once more to leave "for another day" the question of the applicability of Younger abstention principles to civil suits generally. Ante, at 445 n. 8; Juidice, supra, at 345 n. (BRENNAN, J., dissenting); see Huffman, supra, at 607. But the Court's insistence that "the interests of comity and federalism on which Younger and Samuels v. Mackell *454 primarily rest apply in full force here," ante, at 446, is the signal that "merely the formal announcement is being postponed," Juidice, supra, at 345 n. (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). Younger and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971), dismissed federal-court suits because the plaintiffs sought injunctions against pending criminal prosecutions. I agreed with those results because "[p]ending state criminal proceedings have always been viewed as paradigm cases involving paramount state interests." Juidice, supra, at 345 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). But abstention principles developed to avoid interfering with state criminal prosecutions are manifestly inapplicable here.

In this case the federal plaintiffs seek an injunction only against the use of statutory attachment proceedings which, properly speaking, are not part of the pending civil suit at all. The relief granted here in no way interfered with or prevented the State from proceeding with its suit in state court. It merely enjoined the use of an unconstitutional mechanism for attaching assets from which the State hoped to satisfy its judgment if it prevailed on the merits of the underlying lawsuit. To say that the interest of the State in continuing to use an unconstitutional attachment mechanism to insure payment of a liability not yet established brings into play "in full force" "all the interest of comity and federalism" present in a state criminal prosecution is simply wrong. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U. S. 67 (1972), a § 1983 suit challenging a prejudgment replevin statute, addressed precisely this point. Since the plaintiffs had not sought "an injunction against any pending or future court proceeding as such . . . [but rather] challenged only the summary extra-judicial process of prejudgment seizure of property," Fuentes concluded that Younger principles posed no bar to a federal court's granting the relief sought. 407 U. S., at 71 n. 3. See also Lynch v. Household Finance Corp., 405 U. S. 538, 554-555 (1972), and Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (1975).

*455 The application of Younger principles here is also inappropriate because even in the underlying lawsuit the State seeks only a civil recovery of money allegedly fraudulently received. The Court relies on the State's fortuitous presence as a plaintiff in the state-court suit to conclude that the suit is closely related to a criminal suit, but I am hard pressed to understand why the "mere happenstance," 405 F. Supp., at 760, that the State of Illinois rather than a private party invoked the Attachment Act makes this so. The Court's reliance on the presence of the State here may suggest that it might view differently an attachment under the same Act at the instance of a private party, but no reason is advanced why the State as plaintiff should enjoy such an advantage in its own courts over the ordinary citizen plaintiff.^[4] Under any analysis, it seems to me that this solicitousness for the State's use of an unconstitutional ancillary proceeding to a civil lawsuit is hardly compelled by the great principles of federalism, comity, and mutual respect between federal and state courts that account for Younger and its progeny.

The principles that give strength to Younger simply do not support an inflexible rule against federal courts' enjoining state civil proceedings. Younger was justified primarily on the basis of the longstanding rule that "courts of equity . . . particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution." 401 U. S., at 43. A comparably rigid rule against enjoining civil proceedings was never suggested until Huffman, for in *456 civil proceedings it cannot be assumed that state interests of compelling importance outweigh the interests of litigants seeking vindication of federal rights in federal court, particularly under a statute expressly enacted by Congress to provide a federal forum for that purpose. Even assuming that federal abstention might conceivably be appropriate in some civil cases, the transformation of what I must think can only be an exception into an absolute rule crosses the line between abstention and abdication.

When it enacted § 1983, Congress weighed the competing demands of "Our Federalism," and consciously decided to protect federal rights in the federal forum. As we have previously recognized, § 1983 was enacted for the express purpose of altering the federal-state judicial balance that had theretofore existed, and of "offering a uniquely federal remedy against incursions under the claimed authority of state law upon rights secured by the Constitution and the laws of the Nation." Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 239 (1972). State courts are, of course, bound to follow the Federal Constitution equally with federal courts, but Congress has clearly ordained, as constitutionally it may, that the federal courts are to be the "primary and powerful reliances" for vindicating federal rights under § 1983. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452, 464 (1974) (emphasis in original). If federal courts are to be flatly prohibited, regardless of the circumstances of the individual claim of violation of federal rights, from implementing this "uniquely federal remedy" because of deference to purported state interests in the maintenance of state civil suits, the Court has "effectively cripple[d] the congressional scheme enacted in § 1983." Juidice v. Vail, 430 U. S., at 343 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting).

III

Even assuming, arguendo, the applicability of Younger principles, I agree with the District Court that the Illinois *457 Attachment Act falls within one of the established exceptions to those principles. As an example of an "extraordinary circumstance" that might justify federal-court intervention,