The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

THIS CASEBOOK contains a selection of U. S. Court of Appeals decisions that analyze, interpret and apply the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. * * * "The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars lower federal courts from conducting appellate review of final state-court judgments because 28 U. S. C. § 1257 vests sole jurisdiction to review such claims in the Supreme Court." Berry v. Schmitt, 688 F.3d 290, 298 (6th Cir. 2012); see D. C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462, 103 S. Ct. 1303, 75 L. Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 44 S. Ct. 149, 68 L. Ed. 362 (1923). The doctrine has a limited scope. It does not, for example, bar "a district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction simply because a party attempts to litigate in federal court a matter previously litigated in state court." Exxon, 544 U. S. at 293, 125 S. Ct. 1517. It applies only to the "narrow" set of "cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments." Id. at 284, 125 S. Ct. 1517. We determine whether Rooker-Feldman bars a claim by looking to the "source of the injury the plaintiff alleges in the federal complaint." McCormick v. Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 393 (6th Cir. 2006). If the source of the plaintiff's injury is the state-court judgment itself, then Rooker-Feldman applies. Id. "If there is some other source of injury, such as a third party's actions, then the plaintiff asserts an independent claim." Lawrence v. Welch, 531 F.3d 364, 368-69 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting McCormick, 451 F.3d at 394). "A court cannot determine the source of the injury 'without reference to [the plaintiff's] request for relief.'" Berry, 688 F.3d at 299 (alteration in original) (quoting Evans v. Cordray, 424 F. App'x 537, 539 (6th Cir. 2011)). VanderKodde v. Mary Jane M. Elliott, PC, 951 F. 3d 397 (6th Cir. 2020)