Devoted to Corporate Attorneys, Corporate Lawyers, and Corporate Counsel

The following is not meant to be legal advice.

A federal court may remand a matter to state court and abstain from hearing a case.  There is authority that a district court may remand a case to state court for discretionary reasons.  The abstention doctrine provides that a federal court should not interfere with state proceedings, where the exercise of federal review would be disruptive of state efforts to establish a coherent policy with respect to a public concern. 

For example, a plaintiff making an allegation involving state law that results from involuntary hospitalization, and criminal violations resulting from vicious beatings, relates to ordinary assault and battery.  The tort and criminal law doctrines may be well developed.  There would be unlikely abstention if it would not disrupt state efforts to establish as coherent policy.