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Parties Involved:
Stuart Robbennolt
Appellee
Heidi Washington
Appellant

Document Text:

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 15a0655n.06

Case No. 14-2433

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

STUART ROBBENNOLT,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

HEIDI WASHINGTON,

Defendant-Appellant.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF 

MICHIGAN

BEFORE: BOGGS, SUTTON, and COOK, Circuit Judges.

COOK, Circuit Judge. Because this court’s decision in Abbott v. Michigan, 474 F.3d 324 

(6th Cir. 2007), resolves the precise question this case poses, we follow Abbott and reverse.

A Michigan court ordered Stuart Robbennolt to direct General Motors to forward his 

pension benefits to his current residence—a Michigan state prison—to be used to defray the

costs of his incarceration. Robbennolt accordingly notified GM, and Michigan seized 90% of the 

forthcoming benefits. Several years later, Robbennolt sued the warden in federal district court, 

seeking return of the seized benefits. As was true in Abbott, we hold that the district court lacked

authority to alter or amend the state court’s judgment. We therefore REVERSE the judgment of 

the district court and REMAND for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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I.

Michigan’s State Correctional Facility Reimbursement Act (SCFRA) facilitates 

reimbursement from its prisoners for their incarceration costs. See Mich. Comp. Laws 

§§ 800.401–06. The statutory scheme anticipates a complaint by the attorney general, a hearing,

and, if “the prisoner has any assets which ought to be subjected to the claim of the state,” an

order allowing Michigan to appropriate those assets. Id. at § 800.404(3). 

In accordance with these procedures, the Shiawassee County Circuit Court ordered 

Robbennolt “to notify General Motors Corporation, within one week . . . that all pension benefits 

shall be mailed by check made payable to Stuart R. Robbennolt at the Richard A. Handlon 

Correctional Facility.” Shortly thereafter, the attorney general mailed a change-of-address notice 

to GM and attached a separate, signed authorization form from Robbennolt.1 GM then mailed a

monthly pension check to Robbennolt at his prison address, and the warden, pursuant to the 

state-court order, distributed 90% to the state of Michigan to offset the cost of Robbennolt’s

incarceration. Six years later, Robbennolt sued the warden in federal district court, alleging that 

the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. §§ 1144(a), 1056(d)(1),

preempts Michigan’s SCFRA and seeking return of his benefits.

Initially, the district court determined that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine barred 

Robbennolt’s claim, finding that Robbennolt’s injury arose out of the state court’s decision and 

was therefore unreviewable in federal court

Upon Robbennolt’s motion under Rule 60(b), however, the court vacated its summaryjudgment order and directed the warden to disgorge Robbennolt’s pension benefits. This time, 

 

1 Robbennolt’s change-of-address form was not before the court when it ruled on the 

warden’s motion for summary judgment or Robbennolt’s motion to vacate.

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the court waved off the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, focusing instead on a district-court decision, 

Gale v. General Motors, 556 F. Supp. 2d 689 (E.D. Mich. 2008). In Gale, a declaratory 

judgment action by GM against Michigan, the court held that valid authority to redirect 

prisoners’ benefits lay solely with the prisoners, not with Michigan or GM. Id. at 692. 

But after learning that Robbennolt himself authorized the address change—the Michigan

attorney general’s notice to GM included Robbennolt’s signed change-of-address form—the 

warden moved to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e),

urging that Gale does not apply to prisoners who elect to receive benefits at their prison 

addresses. The district court denied the motion, and the warden timely appealed.

II.

The warden appeals both the grant of Robbennolt’s motion for relief from judgment and 

the denial of her own motion to alter or amend the judgment. We review for abuse of discretion. 

See Johnson v. Unknown Dellatifa, 357 F.3d 539, 542 (6th Cir. 2004); Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of 

Chippewa Indians v. Engler, 146 F.3d 367, 374 (6th Cir. 1998). 

Narrow but potent, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars federal review 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.” Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464 (2006) (per curiam) (quoting Exxon Mobil 

Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005)). So long as the plaintiff’s injury 

arises from the state court’s judgment, the doctrine applies. Abbott v. Michigan, 474 F.3d 324, 

328 (6th Cir. 2007). Even injuries caused by third-party actions—say, the conversion of pension 

benefits by state officials—are beyond federal review, provided that they “are the product[s] of a 

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state court judgment.” Id. at 329 (quoting McCormick v. Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 394 (6th Cir. 

2006)). Challenging such actions “challenge[s] . . . the [state-court] judgment itself.” Id.

Using this framework, Abbott held that Michigan prisoners bound by state-court orders to 

redirect their pension benefits to their prison addresses may not seek return of those benefits in 

federal court. Id. (“[T]he plaintiffs’ claims of specific injuries that they have suffered are 

actually challenges to the state-court SCFRA judgments and are barred by the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine.”). Abbott remains the law of this circuit and controls this case.

Facing binding precedent, Robbennolt casts about for an independent, non-state-court

source for his pension deprivation. He cites us to Gale. Gale, however, stopped Michigan from 

ordering GM to send benefits to addresses “other than as designated” by plan participants. 

556 F. Supp. 2d at 692. Inasmuch as Robbennolt, as plan participant, did designate that his 

checks go to the prison address, Gale matters not.2 And because Robbennolt signed the changeof-address form “[p]ursuant to the attached Final Order of the [Shiawassee County Circuit] Court 

entered May 11, 2006,” the pension appropriation is “the product of [that] state court 

judgment.”3Abbott, 474 F.3d at 329 (quoting McCormick, 451 F.3d at 394). As Abbott 

instructs, we do not review such judgments.

Robbennolt may well be correct that ERISA’s anti-alienation provision, see 29 U.S.C. 

§ 1056(d), should prohibit Michigan from obtaining state-court orders forcing prisoners to 

receive pension benefits at their prison addresses. Compare DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cox, 

 

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If anything, Gale bolsters Michigan’s arguments. Although the district court granted 

GM relief, it dismissed Gale’s complaint under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and Michigan’s 

doctrine of res judicata. Gale, 556 F. Supp. 2d at 693–94.

3 Robbennolt’s assertion that he involuntarily signed the change of address form is 

similarly unreviewable. Robbennolt calls his change-of-address form “court-ordered” or “courtcompelled,” i.e., the product of a state-court judgment. Challenging the form challenges the 

underlying judgment.

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447 F.3d 967, 976 (6th Cir. 2006) (holding that certain SCFRA notices to plan administrators 

violate ERISA’s anti-alienation provision), with State Treasurer v. Abbott, 660 N.W.2d 714, 724 

(Mich. 2003) (“The federal prohibition on alienation and assignment of pension benefits is not 

violated where an inmate is directed to receive pension benefits at his own address.”). But the 

state court issued such an order, and we must leave it undisturbed. See Abbott, 474 F.3d at 328.

A final point. The primacy of Rooker-Feldman in the parties’ appellate briefs focused 

our analysis here on that doctrine. But though Abbott’s application of Rooker-Feldman controls 

this case, so too does Abbott’s application of res judicata principles. Abbott, 474 F.3d at 332 

(applying claim preclusion because “SCFRA proceedings generally provide prisoners a full and 

fair opportunity to litigate any of their claims”). And given the Supreme Court’s recent teaching 

regarding Rooker-Feldman’s narrow reach, see Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 532 (2011) 

(citing In re Smith, 349 F. App’x 12, 18 (6th Cir. 2009) (Sutton, J., concurring in part and 

dissenting in part)), we emphasize that res judicata too bars Robbennolt’s claim. 

Because the district court abused its discretion in failing to recognize Abbott as binding 

and indistinguishable precedent, we REVERSE the court’s judgment and REMAND for 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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