No Burford abstention today

The Fifth Court rejected Burford abstention in Stratta v. Roe, observing: “Burford ‘does not require abstention whenever there exists [complex state administrative processes], or even in all cases where there is a potential for conflict with state regulatory law or policy.’ Nor would a federal judgment here interfere with the coherence of state policy. [Groundwater Conservation Districts] are designed to be decentralized and fragmentary in order to offer local control over groundwater resources. There are roughly 100 GCDs in Texas, but nearly two-thirds of them oversee territory coextensive with a single county.” No. 18-50994-CV (May 29, 2020) (citation omitted).