LANCE ET AL. v. DENNIS, COLORADO SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 05-555
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided February 21, 2006
546 U.S. 459
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents the lower federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases brought by “state-court losers” challenging “state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U. S. 280, 284 (2005). In this case, the District Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ suit on the ground that they were in privity with a state-court loser. We hold that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar the plaintiffs from proceeding, and vacate the District Court‘s judgment.
I
This is the latest of several rounds of litigation involving the State of Colorado‘s congressional redistricting after the 2000 census, under which the State gained a seat in the House of Representatives. Lance v. Davidson, 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1121 (2005). The first round began in May 2001. When the Colorado General Assembly failed to pass a redistricting plan for the 2002 congressional elections by the close of its regular session, a group of Colorado voters asked the state courts to create a plan. The courts agreed, drawing a new map reflecting the additional district. See Beauprez v. Avalos, 42 P. 3d 642 (Colo. 2002) (en banc). The 2002 elections were held using this court-ordered plan.
The General Assembly passed its own redistricting plan in the spring of 2003, prompting further litigation—this time about which electoral map was to govern, the legislature‘s or the courts‘. Two suits were filed seeking to enjoin the legislature‘s plan: an original action in the Colorado Supreme Court by the state attorney general seeking to require the secretary of state to use the court-ordered plan, and a similar action brought in a lower state court by several proponents of the court-ordered plan. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1121. After the Colorado General Assembly intervened to defend its plan in the first case, the Colorado Supreme Court held that the
The second suit was removed to federal court by the defendants on the basis of the plaintiffs’ federal-law claims. See Keller v. Davidson, 299 F. Supp. 2d 1171, 1175 (Colo. 2004). Once Salazar was decided by the Colorado Supreme Court, the viability of the defendants’ counterclaims was the only remaining issue. A three-judge District Court held that the defendants were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine from amending their counterclaims to assert additional challenges to the decision in Salazar. It also held that the defendants’ original counterclaims, while not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, were precluded under Colorado law by the judgment in Salazar. Accordingly, the court dismissed the case.
Finally, this suit: Before the dismissal in Keller, several Colorado citizens unhappy with Salazar filed an action in the District Court seeking to require the secretary of state to use the legislature‘s plan.1 The plaintiffs argued that
The three-judge District Court ruled that under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, it had no jurisdiction to hear the Elections Clause claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1127. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court explained, includes three requirements: (1) “[T]he party against whom the doctrine is invoked must have actually been a party to the prior state-court judgment or have been in privity with such a party“; (2) “the claim raised in the federal suit must have been actually raised or inextricably intertwined with the state-court judgment“; and (3) “the federal claim must not be parallel to the state-court claim.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1124. The District Court found the first requirement satisfied on the ground that the citizen-plaintiffs were in privity with the Colorado General Assembly—a losing party in Salazar. Relying on our decisions in Washington v. Washington State Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658 (1979), and Tacoma v. Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S. 320 (1958), the court stated that “when a state government litigates a matter of public concern, that state‘s citizens will be deemed to be in privity with the government for preclusion purposes.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125. This principle, the court reasoned, applies “with equal force in the Rooker-Feldman context.” Ibid. The court went on to conclude that the Elections Clause claim was actually raised in Salazar, or inextricably intertwined with that decision, and was not parallel to the claims presented in Salazar. As to the Petition Clause claim, the court ruled that neither Rooker-Feldman nor Colorado preclusion law prevented the court from proceeding to the merits, but that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1132; see
The plaintiffs appealed. See
II
This Court is vested, under
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine takes its name from the only two cases in which we have applied this rule to find that a Federal District Court lacked jurisdiction. In Rooker, a party who had lost in the Indiana Supreme Court, and failed to obtain review in this Court, filed an action in Federal District Court challenging the constitutionality of the state-court judgment. We viewed the action as tantamount to an appeal of the Indiana Supreme Court decision, over which only this Court had jurisdiction, and said that the “aggrieved litigant cannot be permitted to do indirectly what he no longer can do directly.” 263 U. S., at 416. Feldman, decided 60 years later, concerned slightly different circumstances, with similar results. The plaintiffs there had been refused admission to the District of Columbia bar by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and sought review of these decisions in Federal District Court. Our decision held that to the extent plaintiffs challenged the Court of Appeals decisions themselves—as opposed to the bar admission rules promulgated nonjudicially by the Court of Appeals—their sole avenue of review was with this Court. 460 U. S., at 476.
In Exxon Mobil, decided last Term, we warned that the lower courts have at times extended Rooker-Feldman “far beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases, overriding Congress’ conferral of federal-court jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised by state courts, and superseding the ordinary application of preclusion law pursuant to
Although we have never addressed the precise question before us, we have held Rooker-Feldman inapplicable where the party against whom the doctrine is invoked was not a party to the underlying state-court proceeding. See De Grandy, supra, at 1006. In De Grandy, the State of Florida sought, using Rooker-Feldman, to prevent the United States from bringing a challenge under
In the case before us, the plaintiffs were plainly not parties to the underlying state-court proceeding in Salazar. Salazar was an action brought by the state attorney general against the secretary of state, in which the Colorado General Assembly intervened. 79 P. 3d, at 1227. The four citizen-plaintiffs here did not participate in Salazar, and were not in a “position to ask this Court to review the state court‘s judgment.” De Grandy, supra, at 1006; see Karcher v. May, 484 U. S. 72, 77 (1987) (“[T]he general rule [is] that one who is not a party or has not been treated as a party to a judgment has no right to appeal therefrom“).
Although the District Court recognized the “general rule” that ”Rooker-Feldman may not be invoked against a federal-court plaintiff who was not actually a party to the prior state-court judgment,” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1123, it nevertheless followed Tenth Circuit precedent in allowing application of Rooker-Feldman against parties who were in privity with a party to the earlier state-court action, 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1123 (citing Kenmen Eng. v. Union, 314 F. 3d 468, 481 (2002)). In determining whether privity existed, the court looked to cases concerning the preclusive effect that state courts are required to give federal-court judgments. 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125 (citing Washington, 443 U. S., at 693, n. 32; Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U. S., at 340–341). It concluded that—for Rooker-Feldman as well as preclusion purposes—“the outcome of the government‘s litigation over a matter of public concern binds its citizens.” 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1125.
A more expansive Rooker-Feldman rule would tend to supplant Congress’ mandate, under the
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The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER joins, concurring.
I agree in full with the Court‘s correction of the District Court‘s Rooker-Feldman error, and therefore join the Court‘s opinion. Although JUSTICE STEVENS has persuasively urged that issue preclusion warrants affirmance, see post, at 468–469 (dissenting opinion), that question of Colorado law seems to me best left for full airing and decision on remand.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
Rooker and Feldman are strange bedfellows. Rooker, a unanimous, three-page opinion written by Justice Van Devanter in 1923, correctly applied the simple legal proposition that only this Court may exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 416. Feldman, a nonunanimous, 25-page opinion written by Justice Brennan in 1983, was incorrectly decided and generated a plethora of confusion and debate among scholars and judges.* See District of Columbia
My disagreement with the majority arises not from what it actually decides, but from what it fails to address. Even though the District Court mistakenly believed it had no jurisdiction to hear this matter, its judgment dismissing the cause with prejudice was correct and should be affirmed. See Lance v. Davidson, 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1132 (Colo. 2005). The Elections Clause claim advanced by citizen-appellants in this case is the same as that advanced by their official representatives and decided by the Colorado Supreme Court in People ex rel. Salazar v. Davidson, 79 P. 3d 1221, 1231–1232 (2003). See 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1126. As appellee points out, appellants’ second question presented “is literally the same question presented by the General Assembly on certiorari review (and denied) in Salazar.” Motion to Affirm 12. And, as a matter of Colorado law, appellants are clearly in privity with both then-Colorado Attorney General Salazar, who brought the suit on behalf of the people of Colorado, and the Colorado General Assem-
Appellants’ spurious Petition Clause claim was also properly dismissed by the District Court. See 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1130–1132. Nothing in the Colorado Constitution prevents appellants from petitioning the Colorado General Assembly with their grievances, id., at 1131; nothing in the United States Constitution guarantees that such a petition will be effective, Smith v. Highway Employees, 441 U. S. 463, 465 (1979) (per curiam); see also Minnesota State Bd. for Community Colleges v. Knight, 465 U. S. 271, 285 (1984). Moreover, as the District Court recognized, appellants’ interpretation of the Petition Clause would lead to absurd results. See 379 F. Supp. 2d, at 1131–1132. As such, appellants’ Petition Clause claim was correctly dismissed because it fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See generally
For the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent.