Attorneys regularly representing local governmental entities and officials in Section 1983 litigation typically are no strangers to federal law claims and defenses and are comfortable in their local United States District Courthouse. But these practitioners must also know their way around state law claims and procedures. This chapter provides an overview of the interplay between state and federal law commonly seen in Section 1983 litigation and provides some guidance for the effective defense of clients when both state and federal law is implicated in a particular case.

Section 1983 practitioners are well aware that a single set of operative facts can give rise to both federal and state law causes of action. Often, plaintiff's counsel will bring both types of claims in a single action, but there is an increasing trend of seeking to avoid the cost and rigid oversight of federal courts by foregoing federal causes of action and bringing only state law claims. The following table sets out some of the most common §1983 causes of action and their state law analogs.

There are also situations in which state and federal law are not simply parallel, but rather fully intertwined. The most obvious example is in the context of statutes of limitations; as Section 1983 does not provide a federal statute of limitations, courts will generally apply state statutes of limitations for the most analogous state law claim.¹  Similarly, when a Section 1983 claim is litigated in state court, state courts will look to federal immunities and defenses rather than state immunities.²

With these examples in mind, this chapter focuses on three key areas of interplay: (1) immunity defenses; (2) pleading standards; and (3) abstention and preclusion and related doctrines.

The Difference Between Qualified Immunity and Its State Law Analog

Qualified Immunity
Qualified immunity protects governmental actors from being sued in their individual capacities in Section 1983 litigation. The defense is based on the objective reasonableness of an official's action in light of the clearly established law at the time of the alleged action. Reviewing courts consider whether a reasonable official would understand that his or her actions violate a plaintiff's clearly established constitutional right.³ Qualified immunity is a powerful defense, as it protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”⁴

If a defendant's conduct is found “objectively reasonable” by a court analyzing a federal qualified immunity defense, that reasonableness finding sometimes can be used to defeat companion state law claims. Such an argument is logical: if an official's actions are “objectively reasonable” under the qualified immunity standard, then those same actions cannot also be negligent or wrongful, as required to prove most state law tort claims.⁵  Defeating a state law tort claim in this way may allow a defendant to avoid arguments that state immunity defenses have been waived or are otherwise unavailable.⁶

Governmental Immunity
Governmental immunity is generally available to local governments and governmental employees who perform discretionary acts while engaged in the scope of their employment. Governmental immunity protects individual defendants from tort claims brought against them in their official capacities. Some states have passed Tort Claims Acts that statutorily prohibit certain causes of action against public entities or identify areas where the immunity cannot be waived.⁷  Others have enacted statutes clearly defining the waiver of governmental immunity.⁸  Many states have extensive common law defining the limits of governmental immunity.

Public Official Immunity
Some states allow for public official immunity, which protects certain public officials (usually police officers) from personal liability in tort claims if the official was acting within the scope of his or her employment and was not acting with malice, bad faith, corruption, or willful or wanton conduct. However, case law is often unclear as to what facts are sufficient to show the conduct or mindset necessary to defeat the defense, and in some instances, a self-serving affidavit from a plaintiff is sufficient to withstand summary judgment based on a defense of public official immunity.⁹  Further, in some states an allegation that an arrest lacks probable cause is sufficient to show malice on the part of the police officer and prevent the application of public official immunity, rendering the defense all but impotent.¹⁰

Difference between Federal and State Pleading Standard

The federal pleading standard of plausibility established by Twombly and Iqbal¹¹ has yet to be adopted by many states. Most states have a less stringent notice pleading standard,¹²  although a minority of states require “fact pleading,”¹³  which one scholar has described as “a pleading standard that is higher than” federal courts' plausibility standard.¹⁴  However, in the majority of state courts that apply a notice pleading standard, courts consider whether the allegations of the complaint state a claim for which relief can be granted under some legal theory.¹⁵

A potential interplay between federal and state pleading standards arises when a plaintiff alleges both federal and state claims. While a court analyzing both the federal and state claims at the same time will apply the pleading standard of the forum court,¹⁶ an interesting situation is presented when a federal court analyzes just the federal claims and does not address the pendent state law claims. In Fox v. City of Greensboro, the plaintiff alleged both federal and state claims.¹⁷  The federal court dismissed the federal claims pursuant to Twombly/Iqbal but declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims.¹⁸ The plaintiff refiled those claims in state court, and the defendant moved to dismiss on the basis that the plaintiff was collaterally estopped from bringing these claims because parallel claims had already been dismissed.¹⁹ The North Carolina Court of Appeals provided the following analysis:

However, our review of the pertinent statutes and case law demonstrates that the standard under Federal Rule 12(b)(6), which the federal court here held Plaintiffs failed to meet, is a different, higherpleading standard than mandated under our own General Statutes. In other words, the fact that Plaintiffs' allegations of proximate cause in the federal complaint did not meet the pleading standard under Federal Rule 12(b)(6) does not necessarilymean that their allegations of proximate cause would have resulted in dismissal pursuant to North Carolina Rule 12(b)(6).²⁰

Therefore, the court held that the plaintiff was not collaterally estopped from bringing state law claims even though the federal court had dismissed federal claims with the same elements based on the same set of operative facts.²¹

Thus, it is possible that defendants will have to endure two rounds of litigation—one at the federal level and one at the state level—on facts and claims that are essentially identical. Practitioners evaluating a state court complaint containing state and federal causes of action for possible removal to federal court may want to add this consideration to their analysis.

Of course, both the federal and state pleading standards become more lenient in a case involving a pro se plaintiff, a common occurrence in Section 1983 litigation.²²

Abstention and Preclusion
Sometimes Section 1983 cases are so entangled with questions of state law that a federal court will abstain from judgment to allow related, ongoing state proceedings to conclude. In other situations, the federal court will find that it is precluded from rendering judgment because a state court has already ruled on the same claim or issue. Thus, whether related litigation could have been initiated, is currently being litigated, or has previously been litigated in a state forum are factors that can significantly impact the outcome of Section 1983 claims in federal court.

Abstention
Abstention is a “judge-made” doctrine whereby federal courts decline to exercise jurisdiction over a case, even though the case involves issues of federal law, to allow a state court to conclude related proceedings.²³  Two abstention doctrines that may apply in Section 1983 litigation are Pullman abstention and Younger abstention.

Pullman Abstention
Pullman abstention “is usually applied when a plaintiff properly invokes federal court jurisdiction in the first instance on a federal claim.”²⁴  A federal court may abstain when an issue of state law could be decided in such a way that the federal constitutional issue becomes moot.²⁵  By abstaining, the federal court is able to “avoid unnecessary constitutional adjudication,” as well as “promote a harmonious federal system by avoiding a collision between the federal courts and state (including local) legislatures.”²⁶  Under Pullman, the federal court abstains only from deciding the state law issues; jurisdiction over the federal issues is merely postponed.²⁷

Judge Posner's opinion in Waldron v. McAtee provides a good example of Pullman abstention. In Waldr on the Seventh Circuit considered a Section 1983 claim where the plaintiff alleged that a city's loitering ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.²⁸  On appeal, Judge Posner reasoned that since “[o]nly a state court can authoritatively interpret its own state's statutes and ordinances,” the federal district court should abstain from deciding whether the loitering ordinance violated the constitution until after the plaintiff “sue[d] the defendants in an Indiana state court to determine the applicability of the loitering ordinance to his conduct.”²⁹ The court noted that the meaning given by the state court to the ordinance could “significantly alter the constitutional issue that Waldron wants us to decide, and maybe save the ordinance from being struck down.”³⁰  Judge Posner further observed that “in fact[,] the state proceeding might moot out the federal case altogether, which makes this an even stronger case for abstention.”³¹  By abstaining, the federal court avoided creating a situation where it held that the loitering ordinance violated the Federal Constitution based on its non-authoritative interpretation of the ordinance, only for a state court to later authoritatively interpret the ordinance to have a different, constitutionally permissible meaning.³²

YoungerAbstention
The Younger doctrine allows federal courts to “refrain from exercising their jurisdiction when relief may interfere with certain state proceedings.”³³  For Younger abstention to be appropriate, the state proceeding at issue must be one that is “judicial in nature, involves important state interests, provides the plaintiff an adequate opportunity to raise the federal claims” and constitutional issues, and there must not be any “exceptional circumstances” making abstention inappropriate.³⁴  In addition, Younger abstention only applies when state court proceedings are initiated “before any proceedings of substance on the merits have taken place in the federal court….”³⁵  Younger abstention is typically invoked when the state proceeding is an ongoing criminal case in which the person who is trying to file the federal lawsuit is a defendant.³⁶

In contrast to the Pullman doctrine, the Younger doctrine does not allow a federal claimant to return to federal court for the resolution of federal issues after the state court proceedings have concluded.³⁷  A federal court's decision to abstain under Younger until state court proceedings have concluded often leads to application of one of the preclusion doctrines discussed below.

Preclusion and Related Doctrines
Under 28 U.S.C. §1738, “Congress has specifically required all federal courts to give preclusive effect to state court judgments whenever the courts of the State from which the judgments emerged would do so….”³⁸  The Supreme Court has explained that “[t]his statute has long been understood to encompass the doctrines of   res judicata, or ‘claim preclusion,' and collateral estoppel, or ‘issue preclusion.'”³⁹ In Allen v. McCurry, the Supreme Court held that these preclusion doctrines apply in the context of Section 1983 claims.⁴⁰ Thus, if a state court has already ruled on a claim or issue, federal courts deciding related Section 1983 claims will apply the preclusion doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata to give effect to those state court judgments.⁴¹  (Note that this is a different result from the pleading standard issue discussed above, in which a federal court decision on the viability of a claim was not given preclusive effect by the state court over a parallel claim.)

The related Rooker-Feldman doctrine “prevents federal courts from second-guessing state court decisions by barring the lower federal courts from hearing de facto appeals from state-court judgments….” ⁴² Under Rooker-Feldman, when

claims raised in the federal court action are ‘inextricably intertwined' with the state court's decision such that the adjudication of the federal claims would undercut the state ruling or require the district court to interpret the application of state laws or procedural rules, then the federal complaint must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.⁴³

It applies when “the losing party in state court file[s] suit in federal court after the state proceedings [have] ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.”⁴⁴  The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is an excellent tool in a governmental litigator's kit when faced with a disgruntled and defeated plaintiff who is seeking a second bite at the apple in a different forum.

Another related preclusion theory well-known to Section 1983 practitioners is the Heck doctrine. This applies when an individual convicted or sentenced in state court files a Section 1983 claim seeking money damages based on allegations that government behavior related to the state court proceedings violated a constitutional right. In these situations, “the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff [in the Section 1983 claim] would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.”⁴⁵  However, if a federal court judgment in favor of the plaintiff would not call into question the validity of the state court's criminal judgment against the plaintiff, then the Section 1983 claim may proceed.⁴⁶

For years, federal courts interpreted Heckgenerously in favor of defendants; more recently, however, courts have begun to apply this doctrine more selectively, often precluding only certain aspects of a litigant's Section 1983 claim.⁴⁷ Courts applying Heck in this more restrictive manner have tried to distinguish the conduct forming the basis of the constitutional claim, either “conceptually” or “temporally,” from the conduct forming the basis of the plaintiff's criminal conviction.⁴⁸  For example, a defendant might be validly convicted of resisting arrest in state court, but if a policeman exerted excessive force in response to the defendant's resistance, Heckpotentially may not bar the defendant's Section 1983 claim if it can be shown that the officer may have acted in an alleged unconstitutional manner after the defendant's illegal behavior ceased.⁴⁹ Similarly, other courts have distinguished Heck by explaining that “a lawful arrest can sometimes be carried out in an unlawful manner,” and that a holding that the arrest was carried out unlawfully does not invalidate a conviction itself.⁵⁰  In addition, if the government invokes doctrines such as independent source, inevitable discovery, or harmless error to save improper police behavior from application of the exclusionary rule (which gives effect to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures), then a Section 1983 claim based on the alleged improper police behavior does not invalidate the criminal conviction.⁵¹

Notwithstanding the plaintiff-friendly exceptions discussed above, if defending a Section 1983 case in federal court that involves a related state court case, be sure to evaluate whether any of the abstention or preclusion doctrines apply. Often Section 1983 defendants can weaken their adversary's case by convincing  a federal court to abstain until a state court enters a criminal judgment against the Section 1983 plaintiff, or (if the state court proceedings have concluded) by invoking one of the preclusion doctrines so that the federal court will give effect to a favorable state court judgment.

Conclusion
Considering the tangled web woven by the interplay of federal and state law claims in Section 1983 litigation, it is important for practitioners to be cognizant of the overlapping claims, immunities and defenses, and abstention and preclusion doctrines to defend against these claims most effectively. Lack of familiarity with these concepts may result in you or your client getting stuck in the web.

Copyright 2018, DRI's Governmental Liability. Reprint permission granted.

1. The Supreme Court has explained that “[t]he statute of limitations for a §1983 claim is generally the applicable state law period for personal-injury torts.” City of Rancho Palos Verdes, Cal. v. Abrams, 544 U.S. 113, 123 n.5 (2005) (citing Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 275, 276 (1985) and Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 240–241(1989)). However, “[i]n 1990, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. §1658(a)… which provides a 4-year, catchall limitations period applicable to ‘civil action[s] arising under an Act of Congress enacted after' December 1, 1990.” Id.(alterations in original). Thus, for Section 1983 claims “made possible by a post-1990 [congressional] enactment,” the four-year statute of limitations period found in 28 U.S.C. §1658(a) applies. Id.(citing Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., 541 U.S. 369, 382 (2004)) (brackets in original); see also Baker v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 531 F.3d 1336, 1337 (11th Cir. 2008) (applying 28 U.S.C. §1658(a)'s four-year statute of limitations, instead of state's two-year statute of limitations that would otherwise be applicable, to Section 1983 claim alleging violation of 1991 amendment to 42 U.S.C. §1981).
2. Howlett v. Rose, 496 U.S. 356, 376 (1990) (“Municipal defenses—including an assertion of sovereign immunity— to a federal right of action are, of course, controlled by federal law.”); Felder v. Casey, 487 U.S. 131, 139 (1988) (“Accordingly, we have held that a state law that immunizes government conduct otherwise subject to suit under §1983 is preempted, even where the federal civil rights litigation takes place in state court, because the application of the state immunity law would thwart the congressional remedy.”).
3. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) (“We therefore  hold that government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”).
4. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).
5. See Sigman v. Town of Chapel Hill, 161 F.3d 782, 788–89 (4th Cir. 1998) (wrongful death claim under North Carolina law requiring negligence or other wrongful conduct failed when policeman's actions found reasonable under qualified immunity analysis); Dodson v. Prince George's Cty., Civ. No. JKS 13-2916, 2016 WL 67255 (D. Md. Jan. 6, 2016) (applying Maryland law); Russell v. Wright, 916 F. Supp. 2d 629 (W.D. Va. 2013) (applying Virginia law); Bell v. Dawson, 144 F. Supp. 2d 454, 464 (W.D. N.C. 2001) (“In North Carolina, findings… that a law enforcement officer's use of force was ‘reasonable' for the purposes of finding qualified immunity to a §1983 excessive force claim are fatal to the Plaintiff's state law tort claims.”).
6. Sigman, 161 F.3d. at 789 (police officer's actions found reasonable under qualified immunity analysis; same actions “cannot be negligent or wrongful” as required for state law wrongful death claim; in turn, “[b]ecause the plaintiffs have no state law claim,” Fourth Circuit found that “we need not reach the issue of whether state governmental immunity was waived”).
7. See, e.g., Cal. Gov't Code §815 (“A public entity is not liable for an injury, whether such injury arises out of an act or omission of the public entity or a public employee or any other person.”); S.C. Code Ann. §15-78-60 (itemizing situations where a governmental entity is not liable).
8. See, e.g., N.C. Gen. Stat. §160A-485; Minn. Stat. Ann. §466.06.
9. See, e.g., Ledbetter v. City of Durham, No. COA 14-656, 2014 WL 7473069 (N.C. Ct. App. Dec. 31, 2014). This case demonstrates how a plaintiff's self-serving affidavit can defeat a motion for summary judgment based on the (relatively) nebulous standards of a state immunity defense, even when a court applying the federal qualified immunity defense to the same facts would likely grant a defendant's motion for summary judgment. In Ledbetter, the plaintiff alleged that a police officer used unnecessarily excessive force when arresting the plaintiff during a drug sting. Id.at *1. The officer moved for summary judgment based on public official immunity. Id. The court denied the officer's motion, applying the complicated “malice” analysis that is part of the defense of public official immunity. Id.at *2. The court noted that the plaintiff's affidavit stated that, contrary to the officer's testimony, he did not turn to run away, and the plaintiff's version of events was supported by sworn affidavits from eyewitnesses. Id.at *3. However, these eyewitnesses were very likely the plaintiff cocaine dealer's neighbors (since he was arrested “near his home”). Id.at *1. In view of the following facts, it seems likely to the authors that a court applying federal law's qualified immunity defense would have found the officer's actions “objectively reasonable” and granted summary judgment. For example, (1) the police officer did not use any weapons, but merely tackled the plaintiff; (2) the arrest resulted in police “seizing over two ounces of cocaine” from the plaintiff; (3) the officer testified that the plaintiff was a drug dealer “known to run”; (4) that when the officer ordered the plaintiff to get on the ground, the plaintiff turned as if he was about to run; and (5) the officer testified that he did not intend to hurt the plaintiff, but simply wanted to prevent the plaintiff from escaping. Id.at *1, *3. Nevertheless, the court held that under North Carolina's public official immunity defense, summary judgment was not appropriate.
10. Bennett v. R & L Carriers Shared Servs., LLC, 744 F. Supp. 2d 494, 522 (E.D. Va. 2010), aff'd, 492 F. App'x 315 (4th Cir. 2012) (“In Virginia, under certain circumstances, the want of probable cause alone can serve as legally sufficient evidence to support an inference of malice.”); Soukup v. Law Offices of Herbert Hafif, 139 P.3d 30, 52 (Cal. 2006) (“Malice may also be inferred from the facts establishing lack of probable cause.”); Mejia v. Bowman, No. COA 15-777, 2016 WL 1336607, at *8 (N.C. Ct. App. Apr. 5, 2016) (“Further, it is well established that in the context of a claim for malicious prosecution, for purposes of satisfying the malice element of the plaintiff's prima facie case, malice may be inferred from [the] want of probable cause.”) (alteration in original).
11. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009); Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007).
12. More than 30 states generally base their rules of civil procedure on the federal version. John B. Oakley, “A Fresh Look at the Federal Rules in State Courts,” 3 Nev. L.J. 354, 356–57 (2003). However, one legal scholar states that only a few states have adopted the Twombly/Iqbal pleading standard. See Hon. John P. Sullivan, “Do the New Pleading Standards Set Out in Twombly & Iqbal Meet the Needs of the Replica Jurisdictions?,” 47 Suffolk U.L. Rev. 53, 65, 66, 67, 69 (2014). These states include Maine, Massachusetts, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia. Id.(citing Potomac Dev. Corp. v. District of Columbia, 28 A.3d 531 (D.C. 2011)); Bean v. Cummings, 939 A.2d 676 (Me. 2008); Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 888 N.E.2d 879 (Mass. 2008); Sisney v. Best Inc., 754
    N.W.2d 804 (S.D. 2008)); see also Warne v. Hall, 373 P.3d 588, 595 (Colo. 2016); McDaniel v. Commonwealth, 495 S.W.3d 115, 121 n.6 (Ky. 2016) (citing Twombly and Iqbal with approval when discussing the Kentucky “counterpart” to Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2)).
13. Univ. of Denver Inst. for the Advancement of the Am. Legal Sys., “Fact-Based Pleading: A Solution Hidden in Plain Sight,” at p. 1 (2010), available at http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/iaals_fact-based_pleading_-_a_solution_hidden_in_plain_sight.pdf(“While fact-based pleading has not been a part of the federal civil process since the 1930s, it remains alive and well in many of the country's biggest and busiest state courts, including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Missouri, Virginia, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana.”).
14. William H.J. Hubbard, “A Fresh Look at Plausibility Pleading,” 83 U. Chi. L. Rev. 693, 738 (2016).
15. See, e.g., CommScope Credit Union v. Butler & Burke, LLP, 790 S.E.2d 657, 659 (N.C. 2016) (“In considering a motion to dismiss under [North Carolina's] Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must decide whether the allegations of the complaint, if treated as true, are sufficient to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under some legal theory.”); see alsoOsage Nation v. Bd. of Commr's of Osage Cty., 394 P.3d 1224, 1234 (Okla. 2017) (“Motions to dismiss are generally disfavored and granted only when there are no facts consistent with the allegations under any cognizable legal theory or there are insufficient facts under a cognizable legal theory.”); Colafranceschi v. Briley, 355 P.3d 1261, 1264 (Idaho 2015) (“A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim should not be granted unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim that would entitle [the plaintiff] to relief.”) (alteration in original); Cherokee Funding LLC v. Ruth, 802 S.E.2d 865, 867   (Ga. Ct. App. 2017) (“A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim should be sustained if the allegations of   the complaint reveal, with certainty, that the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief under any state of provable facts asserted in support of the complaint.”); T.H. v. Univ. of Kansas Hosp. Auth., 388 P.3d 181, 186 (Kan. App. 2017) (“The petition is to be liberally construed by the district court which is required to draw any reasonable inferences from [the facts pled] and determine whether the facts and inferences state a claim… on any possible theory the court can divine.”) (alteration in original).
16. See, e.g., Maney v. Fealy, 2013 WL 3779053, at *7 (M.D. N.C. July 18, 2013) (“Although the Court applies North Carolina substantive law to Plaintiff's state law claims, pleading standards are a matter of procedural law governed in this Court by federal, not state, law.”).
17. Fox v. City of Greensboro, 807 F. Supp. 2d 476, 480 (M.D. N.C. 2011).
18. Id.at 500.
19. Fox v. Johnson, 777 S.E.2d 314, 317 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015).
20. Id.at 324.
21. Id.at 325.
22. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976) (“[A] pro se complaint, ‘however inartfully pleaded,' must be held to ‘less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers' and can only be dismissed for failure to state  a claim if it appears ‘beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.'”) (quoting Haines v. Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520–21 (1972)).
23. Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 248 (1967) (citing R.R. Comm'n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496 (1941)).
24. Ivy Club v. Edwards, 943 F.2d 270, 279 (3d Cir. 1991) (citing Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 101 n.17 (1980)).
25. “To warrant Pullman abstention: (1) there must be substantial uncertainty over the meaning of the state law at issue; and (2) there must be a reasonable possibility that the state court's clarification of the law will obviate the need for a federal constitutional ruling.” Rivera-Puig v. Garcia-Rosario, 983 F.2d 311, 322 (1st Cir. 1992) (citing Haw. Hous. Auth. v. Midkiff, 467 U.S. 229, 236–37 (1983)).
26. Waldron v. McAtee, 723 F.2d 1348, 1351 (7th Cir. 1983).
27. Ivy Club, 943 F.2d at 279.
28. Waldron, 723 F.2d at 1350.
29. Id.at 1352, 1355.
30. Id.at 1353.
31. Id.
32. Id.at 1352.
33. 33    Ewell v. Toney, 853 F.3d 911, 916 (7th Cir. 2017).
34. Id.
35. Id.(citing Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 349 (1975)).
36. Simpson v. Rowan, 73 F.3d 134, 137 (7th Cir. 1995) (“In Younger, the Supreme Court held that absent extraordinary circumstances federal courts should abstain from enjoining ongoing state criminal proceedings.”).
37. Ivy Club, 943 F.2d at 280 (“[A] decision under Youngerterminates the federal litigation (or ends the state litigation if the federal plaintiff is successful)….”)
38. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 96 (1980).
39. San Remo Hotel, L.P. v. City & Cty. of S.F., Cal., 545 U.S. 323, 336 (2005) (citing Allen, 449 U.S. at 94–96).
40. Allen, 449 U.S. at 104 (finding “no reason to believe that Congress intended to provide a person claiming a federal right an unrestricted opportunity to relitigate an issue already decided in state court simply because the issue arose in a state proceeding in which he would rather not have been engaged at all.”).
41. San Remo Hotel, 545 U.S. at 336.
42. Bianchi v. Rylaarsdam, 334 F.3d 895, 898 (9th Cir. 2003).
43. Id.
44. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 291 (2005).
45. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994).
46. Id.
47. See, e.g., Cummings v. City of Akron, 418 F.3d 676 (6th Cir. 2005) (defendant in criminal case pled guilty to assault of police officers that occurred before officers illegally searched defendant's house; only defendant's excessive force claim, not unreasonable seizure and unlawful entry claims, was barred under Heck during subsequent Section 1983 claim).
48. Bush v. Strain, 513 F.3d 492 (5th Cir. 2008); see also Ballard v. Burton, 444 F.3d 391 (5th Cir. 2006) (holding that plaintiff convicted of simple assault on one police officer could bring excessive force claim against different police officer who shot plaintiff during altercation because claim was conceptually distinct from simple assault charge).
49. Bush, 513 F.3d at 498 (holding that Heck did not bar “a claim that excessive force occurred after the arrestee has ceased his or her resistance,” because this holding “would not necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction   for the earlier resistance.”); see alsoMedley v. City of Detroit, No. 07-15046, 2008 WL 4279360, at *12 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 16, 2008) (noting that “courts have consistently allowed §1983 claims arising out of allegations that the excessive force occurred after the arrest.”).
50. Ickes v. Grassmeyer, 30 F. Supp. 3d 375, 388 (W.D. Pa. 2014); see also Lora-Pena v. F.B.I., 529 F.3d 503, 506 (3d Cir. 2008) (holding that Heck did not present a complete bar to the plaintiff's Section 1983 claim because the plaintiff's “convictions for resisting arrest and assaulting officers would not be inconsistent with a holding that the officers, during a lawful arrest, used excessive (or unlawful) force in response to [the plaintiff's] unlawful actions”).
51. Pearson v. Weischedel, 349 F. App'x 343 (10th Cir. 2009) (holding that Section 1983 claim was not barred when police officers found drugs before committing alleged constitutional violations).