F.3d 65, 75 (2d Cir.2003). In this case, the defendants claim that the Rosado case constitutes precisely such a pending state proceeding. The district court, however, refused to apply Younger on the ground that there was not a strict identity of plaintiffs in the state and federal court actions; whereas the plaintiffs in state court are The New York Times and The Hartford Courant, in federal court they are The Courant and The Connecticut Law Tribune. Hartford Courant Co., 290 F.Supp.2d at 272-73. The question of the extent to which the plaintiffs in a federal action must be identical to the plaintiffs or defendants in the state court case upon which abstention is based is more complicated and less settled, however, than the district court acknowledged. Compare Spargo, 351 F.3d at 85 (<HOLDING>), with Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94
holding that younger abstention is jurisdictional holding that while younger abstention is only justified if the pending state proceeding has the authority to adjudicate a litigants federal claims when a litigant has not attempted to present his federal claims in related statecourt proceedings a federal court should assume that state procedures will afford an adequate remedy in the absence of unambiguous authority to the contrary holding that younger abstention was appropriate while the case works its way through the state appellate process holding that to avoid younger abstention plaintiffs must demonstrate that state law bars the effective consideration of their federal claims holding that because the federal plaintiffs claims were essentially derivative of the state defendants younger abstention applied