California v. Grace Brethren Church, 457 U.S. 393 (1982)
California v. Grace Brethren Church
No. 81-31
Argued March 30, 1982
Decided June 18, 1982 *
457 U.S. 393
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
Syllabus
The Federal Unemployment Tax Act established a cooperative federal-state scheme to provide benefits to unemployed workers. The Act requires employers to pay an excise tax on wages paid to employees in "covered" employment, but entitles them to a credit on the federal tax for contributions paid into federally approved state unemployment compensation programs. The Act, in 26 U.S.C. § 3309(b), exempts from mandatory state coverage employees of, inter alia,
an organization which is operated primarily for religious purposes and which is operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches.
A number of California churches and religious schools, including religious schools unaffiliated with any church, brought suit in Federal District Court to enjoin the Secretary of Labor from conditioning his approval of the California unemployment insurance program on its coverage of plaintiffs’ employees, and to enjoin the State from collecting both tax information and the state unemployment compensation tax. The District Court conducted various proceedings and issued several opinions and orders extending over almost a year and a half, in one of which proceedings it rejected the Federal Government’s argument that the court was barred from granting injunctive relief by the Tax Injunction Act, which provides that district courts "shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain" the assessment or collection of any state tax where "a plain, speedy and efficient remedy" may be had in the courts of such State. Ultimately, as pertinent here, on the ground that the benefit entitlement decisions for employees of the religious schools unaffiliated with churches risked excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the court permanently enjoined the state defendants from collecting unemployment taxes from such schools, but did not issue an injunction against the federal defendants as to the schools, because it had no information as to what response the Secretary of Labor would make to the court’s conclusion that the state defendants could not constitutionally impose state unemployment taxes on the employees of such schools. The court said that, if the Secretary instituted decertification proceedings against California for failing to collect the taxes on behalf of such employees, the parties could apply to the court for further relief.
Held:
1. This Court has jurisdiction to hear these appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1252, which permits appeals to this Court from a federal court judgment holding an Act of Congress unconstitutional in any civil action to which the United States or any of its agencies, or any officer or employee thereof, is a party. While the District Court did not expressly hold § 3309(b) unconstitutional as applied to religious schools unaffiliated with churches, the effect of its several opinions and orders was to make "the United States or its officers . . . bound by a holding of unconstitutionality." McLucas v. DeChamplain, 421 U.S. 21, 31. Pp. 404-407.
2. The Tax Injunction Act deprived the District Court of jurisdiction to issue declaratory and injunctive relief. Pp. 407-419.
(a) That Act prohibits declaratory as well as injunctive relief. Because the declaratory judgment procedure "may in every practical sense operate to suspend collection of the state taxes until the litigation is ended," Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U.S. 293, 299, the very language of the Act -- "suspend or restrain" the assessment or collection of state taxes -- suggests that a district court is prohibited from issuing declaratory relief in state tax cases. Moreover, because there is little practical difference between injunctive and declaratory relief, it is unlikely that Congress intended to prohibit taxpayers from seeking one form of relief, while permitting them to seek another, thereby defeating the principal purpose of the Tax Injunction Act "to limit drastically" federal court interference with the assessment and collection of state taxes. Pp. 407-411.
(b) A state court remedy is "plain, speedy and efficient" within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act only if it
provides the taxpayer with a "full hearing and judicial determination" at which she may raise any and all constitutional objections to the tax.
Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 450 U.S. 503, 514. Pp. 411-413.
(c) Here, because the taxpayers in question could seek a refund of their state unemployment insurance taxes through state administrative and judicial procedures, and thereby obtain state judicial review of their constitutional claims, their remedy under state law was "plain, speedy and efficient" within the meaning of the Tax Injunction Act. There is no merit to the taxpayers’ argument that the California refund procedures did not constitute a "plain, speedy and efficient remedy" because their First Amendment claims could be effectively remedied only by injunctive relief, and that such relief was unavailable in California. First, under California procedures, the taxpayers should be able to challenge the constitutionality of the unemployment tax in state court before extensive entanglement occurs, and state tax collection agencies can be expected to abide by resulting state court rulings. Second, to the extent that any entanglement occurs before state review of the constitutional questions, that entanglement would not be reduced by seeking relief instead in the federal courts. Moreover, to carve out a special exception for taxpayers who raise First Amendment claims would undermine the Tax Injunction Act’s primary purpose. Pp. 413-417.
(d) Where the District Court was without jurisdiction, this Court will not consider the merits of the taxpayers’ First Amendment claims. McLucas v. DeChamplain, supra, and Weinberger v. Salfi, 422 U.S. 749, distinguished. Pp. 418-419.
Vacated and remanded.
O’CONNOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN, WHITE, MARSHALL, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 419.