2d Circuit narrows Rooker-Feldman doctrine

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine may be one of the least interesting areas of federal practice. But it does highlight a unique aspect of our legal system: we have federal courts and we have state courts. Each must respect the judgment of the others so that state court losers don't file in federal court to start over again and hope for a different result. This case shows how it all works.

The case is Hunter v. McMahon, decided on July 20. Plaintiff lived in Niagara County. The Child Protective Services office successfully petitioned Family Court to remove her parental rights. Plaintiff filed an appeal in the state system. Before the appeal was decided, she then filed suit in federal court against the people who took her son away, asserting they violated her constitutional rights. 

Rooker-Feldman is a judge-made doctrine that has been refined over the years. Named after two Supreme Court cases, it generally means that state court losers cannot file suit in federal court if victory in federal court would in effect nullify the state court judgment. Since state and federal courts (for the most part) can entertain the same claims, litigants have a choice when they decide to sue someone. If you take your chances in state court and lose, the federal courts are not there for you if you think the state court was a kangaroo court. But the whole point of Rooker-Feldman is that the state court judgment is only final for purposes of this doctrine when state court proceedings have ended. That usually happens when the appeal is resolved against you.

Here, while plaintiff appealed the CPS findings to the state appellate court, her federal lawsuit did not violate Rooker-Feldman because she filed the federal action before the state appeals were decided. Rooker-Feldman has been narrowed by the Supreme Court over the years, such that some legal commentators have written obituaries for the doctrine. But the Second Circuit notes that courts still apply Rooker-Feldman in limited circumstances, and the Court notes:

In our circuit, we have articulated a four-part test according to which Rooker-Feldman applies if “(1) the federal-court plaintiff lost in state court; (2) the plaintiff complains of injuries caused by a state court judgment; (3) the plaintiff invites review and rejection of that judgment; and (4) the state judgment was rendered before the district court proceedings commenced.”

This case represents the first time the Second Circuit has decided whether Rooker-Feldman applies when a state court appeal is pending. But other courts have already addressed that issue and found that Rooker-Feldman does not apply in that circumstance. "If the rule were otherwise, it would not be possible to tell whether the plaintiff in federal court was the loser in state court. In this case, for example, two months after the district court dismissed Hunter’s complaint, a New York appellate court reversed the state-court order terminating Hunter’s parental rights."