No. 21-3367 ___________________________

375 Slane Chapel Road, LLC

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant

v.

Stone County, Missouri, et al.

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants - Appellees ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri - Joplin ____________

Submitted: June 15, 2022 Filed: November 22, 2022 ____________ Before LOKEN and KELLY, Circuit Judges, and MENENDEZ, District Judge.* ____________ LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Joseph and Yvonne Cordell own 375 Slane Chapel Road, LLC (“375”), a limited liability company that owns and operates a substantial vacation home adjacent to Table Rock Lake in Stone County, Missouri. When the Cordells’ personal use of

* The Honorable Katherine M. Menendez, United States District Judge for the District of Minnesota, sitting by designation. the home declined, 375 applied in October 2020 for a conditional use permit (“CUP”) to rent out the property to short-term renters on platforms such as Airbnb. A CUP is required by Art. 4, § 25 of the Stone County Zoning Regulations (the “Short-Term Rental Regulation”). After a November 17 hearing at which 375 presented testimony and exhibits in favor of the application and Marlin Constance, a nearby property owner, spoke in opposition, the Stone County Planning & Zoning Commission approved the application by a 7-6 vote. Constance appealed the Commission’s decision to the Stone County Board of Adjustment. See Stone Cty. Zoning Reg., Art. 27, §§ 1(F), 3. After a hearing on April 13, 2021 at which those supporting and opposing 375’s application appeared, the Board of Adjustment voted 3-0 to reverse the Planning & Zoning Commission’s decision and deny 375 a CUP.

On May 12, 375 filed separate actions in state and federal court to overturn the Board of Adjustment’s decision. In the Western District of Missouri, 375 filed this federal action, alleging that the Short-Term Rental Regulation is unconstitutionally vague on its face and as applied to 375 because, by using the word “may,” the regulation gives the Board of Adjustment unbridled discretion. One hour later, 375 filed a certiorari action in the Circuit Court of Stone County against the Board of Adjustment under Mo. Rev. Stat. § 64.870, alleging that the Board’s decision was not supported by competent and substantial evidence, and that the Board unlawfully applied the Short-Term Rental Regulation in a disparate and discriminatory manner in violation of the Equal Protection Clauses of the United States and Missouri Constitutions. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1; Mo. Const. art. 1, § 2.

Defendants promptly moved to dismiss this lawsuit, arguing, as relevant here, that 375’s federal claims are “barred by the Younger abstention doctrine.” Invoking Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), the district court granted the motion, abstained from adjudicating the federal complaint in deference to “the parallel state court proceeding,” dismissed 375’s complaint without prejudice, and subsequently denied 375’s Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend the judgment. 375 appeals these

-2- rulings. Concluding that the district court misinterpreted the “exceptional circumstances” warranting Younger abstention as defined in Sprint Communications v. Jacobs, 571 U.S. 69, 78, 82 (2013), we reverse.

I. The Abstention Landscape

In Younger v. Harris, the Supreme Court held that, absent “extraordinary circumstances,” “the possible unconstitutionality of a [state] st