Affirmed by published opinion. Chief Judge WILKINSON wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILLIAMS and Judge MICHAEL joined.
OPINION
Appellant Brown & Root filed a motion in state court to compel arbitration of ap-pellees’ employment discrimination claims. The state court denied this motion. Brown & Root sought appellate review of this decision first in the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and then in the United States Supreme Court. The state supreme сourt declined to issue a writ of prohibition. Brown & Root then petitioned a federal district court to compel arbitration. While this petition was pending, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari to review the state court *197 decision. The district court dismissed the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Because Brown & Root was in essence seeking appellate review of a state court decision by a federal district court in violation of Rooker-Feldman, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
I.
Appellant Brown & Root employed ap-pellees Warren Breckenridge and Charles Lee Booker as construction and maintenance workers. Upon commencing work with Brown & Root, Breckenridge and Booker each signed an employment contract. Each contract contained an arbitration clause covering employment disputes. Brown & Root terminated both men in October 1996.
In September 1997, Breckenridge and Booker filed an employment discrimination suit against Brown & Root and two supervisors in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, West Virginia. Breckenridge and Booker alleged that they were terminated because of their race in violation of the West Virginia Human Rights Act (WVHRA), W. Va.Code § 5-11-1 to -20 (1999). In December 1997, Brown & Root filed a motion in the state trial court to сompel Breckenridge and Booker to arbitrate their claims as required by their employment contracts.
In September 1998, the state court heard argument on Brown & Root’s motion. The proceedings focused primarily on the question of whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. § 1 et seq. (1994), governed the instant dispute. Brown & Root argued that the FAA required appellees to submit their claims to arbitration pursuant to their employment agreements. The state court denied the motion, holding that “an еmployee[’s] right to a trial by jury under the West Virginia Human Rights Act cannot be waived or contracted away, even though as a condition of employment an agreement to arbitrate exists between the parties.”
Brown
&
Root then petitioned the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals for a writ of prohibition. Specifically, Brown
&
Root asked the state supreme court to vacate the triаl court’s ruling and to bar any further proceedings until the parties could complete arbitration. Brown
&
Root states that it sought this writ because West Virginia does not provide a statutory right of appeal from an interlocutory order denying a motion to compel arbitration.
See
W. Va.Code § 58-5-1 (Supp.1999) (only final judgments of circuit courts are appealable to state supreme court);
James M.B. v. Carolyn M.,
Brown & Root then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) (1994). Brown & Root asserted that the state trial court’s decision constituted a final judgment or decree for the purpose of certiorari jurisdiction under
Southland Corp. v. Keating,
In March 1999, while its petition for certiorari was pending, Brown & Root filed suit against Breckenridge and Booker in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia. Brown & Root filed this federal action in an effort to bring the state judicial proceedings to a halt and direct the matter to arbitration. Brown & Root then petitioned the district court to compel arbitration оf appellees’ employment discrimination claims pursuant to § 4 of the FAA.
Appellees filed a motion to dismiss Brown
&
Root’s complaint. On May 21, 1999, the district court granted the motion on the ground that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the
Rooker-Feldman
doctrine.
See Brown & Root, Inc. v. Breckenridge,
II.
The
Rooker-Feldman
doctrine provides that “a United States District Court has no authority to review final judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings.”
District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman,
Rooker-Feldman
bars not only direct review of issues actually decided by the state court, but also consideration of those claims which are “inextricably intertwined” with state court decisions.
See Feldman,
Rooker-Feldman
is one of a number of doсtrines that safeguards our dual system of government from federal judicial erosion.
Cf. Atlantic Coast Line R.R. v. Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs,
Even more fundamentally, the
Rooker-Feldman
doctrine is rooted in the principle of separation of powers. It rests on two basic propositions of federal jurisdiction. First, Congress has vested the
*199
authority to review state court judgments in the United States Supreme Court alone.
See
28 U.S.C. § 1257(a);
Feldman,
Importantly, “the
Rooker-F eldman
doctrine precludes not only review of adjudications of the state’s highest court, but also the decisions of its lower courts.”
Jordahl v. Democratic Party of Virginia,
Finally,
Rooker-F eldman
also applies to interlocutory orders issued by state courts. Indeed, “[i]t cannot be the meaning of
Rooker-F eldman
that, while the inferior federal courts are barred from reviewing
final
decisions of state courts, they are free to review interlocutory orders.”
Doctor’s Assocs., Inc. v. Distajo,
III.
Brown & Root argues that Rook-er-Feldman does not bar thе instant action because consideration of its federal petition would not require the .federal district court to engage in direct review of the state court order. The state court decision was allegedly based entirely on its construction of the WVHRA and did not address the preemptive effect of the FAA on state law. Brown & Root’s federal petition to compel arbitration, оn the other hand, is based entirely on § 4 of the FAA. Brown & Root contends that it thus asserts an unresolved and independent federal claim based on the FAA and its preemptive effect on state law.
We disagree. What Brown & Root seeks now is nothing more than appellate review of the state court ruling in the lower federal courts. Brown & Root requests the exact same relief that the state trial court refused to grant. Brоwn & Root also relies on the same legal grounds for relief in both its state and federal motions — namely, the preemptive effect of the FAA on appellees’ state law claims. The state court heard extensive argument on this issue and specifically addressed the applicability of the FAA in the proceedings before it.
A brief review of the state court proceedings demonstrаtes that Brown & Root raised and the state court actually decided the question of the FAA’s application to
*200
this case.
See Plyler,
The outcome of this motion, Your Hon- or, we believe, turns on the question of whether federal arbitration law or state arbitration law governs the arbitration agreement entered into between the two plaintiffs and Brown & Root. Federal arbitration law, of course, is embodied in the Federal Arbitration Act, and we take the position that that statute controls this dispute rather than state law. The Federal Arbitration Act does apply.
Counsel then discussed federal and state case law relevаnt to the question of whether the FAA applies to a given claim. Brown & Root relied chiefly on
Southland Corp. v. Keating,
During Brown & Root’s reply argument, the following colloquy took place between the court and Brown & Root:
THE COURT: What is your strongest position that the Federal Act preempts this? What is the strongest position that you have on that?
BROWN & ROOT: That is the salient issue, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Why does that apply? Why does the Fеderal Act apply here? What is your strongest argument?
Brown & Root went on to argue that Southland and Perry controlled, while the court suggested that those cases were distinguishable. The court then said it was going to deny the motion, stating that parties to an employment agreement could not contract out of the WVHRA. The court also noted that if the FAA did indeed preempt the state claims in this case, then the state supreme court could so hold. The court’s subsequent order denying the motion referenced these proceedings and concluded: “The Court determines that an employeef’s] right to a trial by jury under the West Virginia Human Rights Act cannot be waived or contracted away, even though as a condition of employment an agreement to arbitrate exists between the parties.”
A comparison of Brown & Root’s federal complaint with its position in statе court is also instructive:
Brown & Root is aggrieved by Defendants’ refusal to honor their agreements and submit their claims to arbitration, and by the state courts’ disregard of federal law, and is compelled to initiate this action to obtain enforcement of the parties’ agreements to arbitrate pursuant to the FAA.
This complaint seeks precisely the same relief denied by the state trial court. In faсt, Brown & Root claims that the West Virginia state courts have in part caused its present injury by refusing to grant the relief sought. Further, Brown & Root’s brief to the district court made much the same argument that Brown & Root presented to the state court — an argument which the state court had already rejected.
In light of all of this, Brown
&
Root’s contention that the state court’s ruling “was based solely on its interpretation of West Virginia statе law” and that the federal petition “presents an issue unresolved by the state court” appears disingenuous. Indeed, it is difficult to identify any sub
*201
stantive difference between the issues decided by the state trial court and those presented to the federal district court. Brown
&
Root makes much of the fact that the state court’s written order did not specifically mention the FAA. But this resort to literalism flies in the fаce of the ample record showing that the FAA issue was argued before and decided by the state court. Even without the benefit of the transcript of the state proceedings, this court would have little difficulty finding that Brown & Root’s federal claim is “inextricably intertwined” with the state court judgment. The instant litigation thus “essentially amounts to nothing more than an attempt to seek review of [the state court’s] decision by a lower federal court.”
Plyler,
Not only did the state trial court decide the FAA issue, but Brown & Root also sought appellate review through the statutorily prescribed channels of petitions to the state supreme court and United States Supreme Court. Indeed, Brown & Root’s petitions to these courts belie its present argument that the state trial court did not decide the applicability of the FAA. For example, in its petition to the state supreme court for a writ of prohibition, Brown & Root contended:
Judge Kaufman’s ruling ... is clearly сontrary to the FAA, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court and other courts. Judge Kaufman’s holding that agreements to arbitrate claims arising under the West Virginia Human Rights Act are not enforceable under the FAA violates these fundamental constitutional principles and must be vacated.... The respondent judge committed clear error by finding that plaintiffs’ claims under the Human Rights Act are not subject to the Federal Arbitration Act.
Similarly, in its petition to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certio-rari, Brown & Root asserted:
[T]he sole basis for the trial court’s decision was its view that the right to trial by jury preserved in the West Virginia Human Rights Act controlled over the FAA, notwithstanding decisions of [the United States Supreme] Court to the contrary.... [T]he trial court refused to follow these decisions, concluding instead that Southland and Perry were distinguishable because they did not involve “human rights.”
Brown & Root argues that the instant action ■ should nonetheless be allowed to proceed because it was deprived of a “meaningful opportunity to obtain appellate review.” This argument, however, misstates the law. The relevant inquiry is whether a party had a “reasonable opportunity to raise his federal claim- in state proceedings.”
E.g., Long v. Shorebank Devel. Corp.,
Here Brown & Root not only had a reasonable opportunity to raise its federal *202 claim in state court, but it in fact did so and obtained a state court ruling on this claim. Brown & Root then sought a writ of prohibition from the state supreme court. The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals exercised its discretion against issuing a writ. Whether this constituted a “meaningful opportunity to obtain appellate review” is not the question. Rather, all that matters is that Brown & Root undeniably enjoyed a reasonable opportunity to raise its FAA claim in state court. Rooker-Feldman requires no more.
In this connection, § 16 of the FAA does not allow Brown & Root to escape the
Rooker-Feldman
bar. Section 16 provides for immediate appeal of an order denying a § 4 petition to compel arbitration. 9 U.S.C. § 16(a)(1)(B);
see also Harrison v. Nissan Motor Corp.,
Brown & Root also relies on the Second Circuit’s decision in
Distajo,
Whether or not the state court erred in its ruling on the merits of Brown
&
Root’s motion to compel arbitration is immaterial. We make no judgment whatsoever on the correctness of the state court’s ruling concerning the applicability of the FAA in this case. Indeed, it is well established that state courts “have it within both their power and their proper role to render binding judgments on issues of federal law, subject only to review by [the United States Supreme] Court.”
ASARCO,
IV.
“Dominating this case is a simple fact: [The federal plaintiff] objects to the outcome of a judicial proceeding and filed a separate suit to get around it.”
GASH Assocs. v. Village of Rosemont,
AFFIRMED.