serve an important countervailing interest. See 424 U.S. at 813, 96 S.Ct. 1236. “Abstention from the exercise of federal jurisdiction is the exception, not the rule.” Id. Abstention is appropriate where an action presents difficult questions of state law bearing on policy problems of substantial public import which transcend the result in the case before the court. See Colo. River Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. at 814, 96 S.Ct. 1236 (“Abdication of the obligation to decide cases can be justified under this doctrine only in the exceptional circumstances where the order to the parties to repair to the state court would clearly serve an important countervailing interest.”); La. Power and Light Co. v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25, 28-30, 79 S.Ct. 1070, 3 L.Ed.2d 1058 (1959)(<HOLDING>); Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 316-35,
holding that a state agency created under state law was a state actor holding that pursuit of a parallel state court lawsuit involving claims and parties common to the federal action does not justify the district courts intervention in state court proceedings holding that the district court had discretion to stay declaratory judgment action where parallel proceedings presenting opportunity for ventilation of the same state law issues were underway in state court holding that a federal action was properly stayed pending the outcome of parallel state proceedings where the action involved a matter of state policythe scope of eminent domain powers of municipalities under state law holding that while the fourteenth amendment is directed against state action and not private action the state action requirement is met in a civil action where state law is applied whether by statute or common law