## F I L E D United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### MAY 20 2005 

### PATRICK FISHER Clerk UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

TENTH CIRCUIT

In re CLARENCE J. EBEL, Jr., d/b/a HAYSTACK MOUNTAIN GOLF COURSE AND DRIVING RANGE, d/b/a/ GOLF HAYSTACK,

Debtor,
LOIS J. EBEL,

Plaintiff-Appellee, No. 04-1277 (D. Colorado) (D.C. No. 03-K-633)

v. CLARENCE JOSEPH EBEL JR.,

Defendant-Appellant, DENNIS KING,

Defendant, and ROBERT KAYNE, E. WARREN GOSS, and W.F. ROBINSON, III,

Intervenors- Defendants* This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the

doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and col lateral estoppel. The court generally disfavors the citation of orders and judg ments; nevertheless, an order and judgment may be cited under the terms and condi tions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.

1 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this appeal. **See** F ED
. R. A PP
. P. 34(a)(2); 10 TH C IR
. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without ora l argument. -2- ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Before HENRY, MURPHY, and MCCONNELL , Circuit Judges. 1
Clarence Joseph Ebel, Jr., appeals the district cou rt’s order affirming the bankruptcy court’s application of the Rooker-Feldma n doctrine. The district court concluded that the bankruptcy court lacked jurisdic tion to review a Colorado state court’s ruling in a divorce case. We agree and the refore affirm the district court’s decision.

I. BACKGROUND The epic facts of this dispute are well known to th e parties and are set forth in numerous court orders, including our prior order and judgment in this case. See In re Ebel , No. 96-1190, 1997 WL 428574 (10th Cir. July 31, 1 997). Thus, we only briefly summarize them here.-3-

In 1986, the District Court for Boulder County, Col orado granted Mrs. Ebel a divorce from Mr. Ebel. Before the Boulder County court divided the marital property, Mr. Ebel filed bankruptcy. Despite the b ankruptcy filing, the Boulder County court proceeded with the division of marital property. The Ebels then spent years in state court and bankr uptcy court litigating issues relating to the property division. Eventual ly, this court concluded that the Boulder County court had acted improperly in procee ding with the property division after Mr. Ebel filed bankruptcy. See id. We therefore remanded the case to the bankruptcy court. In turn, that court grant ed relief from the automatic stay to allow the Boulder County court to proceed with a second division of property. The Boulder County court then awarded the entire ma rital estate to Mrs. Ebel, concluding that Mr. Ebel had “dissipated mari tal assets by reducing the marital estate by hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney fees and receiver fees and that the marital property was subject to o ver $ 4 million in tax liens.” See Aplt’s App. at 109 (In re Ebel , No. 00CA0170 (Colo. Ct. App. Feb. 14, 2002)) (unpublished disposition discussing the Boul der County court’s ruling). Thus, Mr. Ebel had “wasted the marital estate by mo re than the half to which he ordinarily would have been entitled.” Id. at 110. Mr. Ebel appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, arguing in part that the Boulder County court had erred in relying on an alleged stipulation to the v alue of a golf course, the major-4-

asset of the estate. The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected Mr. Ebel’s argument and affirmed the Boulder County court’s order divid ing the property. The Colorado Supreme Court denied certiorari. Mr. Ebel then filed the motion at issue in this app eal, arguing that the Boulder County court’s order dividing the property should be vacated because the court relied on a void stipulation and violated his due process rights. The bankruptcy court denied the motion, and the federal district court affirmed that ruling. Both courts reasoned that Mr. Ebel’s chall enge to the state court order was barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

II. DISCUSSION In this appeal, Mr. Ebel argues that the bankruptcy court and the district court erred in applying the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. According to Mr. Ebel, the bankruptcy court retained jurisdiction over the div ision of marital property because the Boulder County court violated the autom atic stay effected by the filing of the bankruptcy case. The application of the Rooker- Feldman doctrine presents a legal question, and we thus engage in de novo review. See Guttman v. Khalsa , 401 F.3d 1170, 1172 (10th Cir. 2005). Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction to hear appeals from final judgments o f state courts or to adjudicate-5-

claims that are inextricably intertwined with those judgments. See Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co. , 263 U.S. 413 (1923); D.C. Ct. App. v. Feldman , 460 U.S. 462, 486-87 (1983). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine has been applied to cases involving a bankruptcy court’s granting relief from the automat ic stay to allow a state court case to proceed. See In re Reitnauer , 152 F.3d 341, 344 (5th Cir. 1998) (holding that after a bankruptcy court partially lifted the automatic stay to allow state court proceedings to continue, the federal district court “violated the letter of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine by sitting in appellate review of the sta te court judgment”); see also In re Wilson , 116 F.3d 87, 90 (3d Cir. 1997) (“The bankruptcy court is also prohibited from reviewing the state court’s judgment by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which prohibits lower federal courts fro m sitting as effective courts of appeal for state court judgment s.”). Nevertheless, the bankruptcy courts retain jurisdiction to review compliance with the automatic stay. As the Ninth C ircuit has reasoned, “the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is not implicated by collateral challenge s to the automatic stay in bankruptcy.” In re Gruntz , 202 F.3d 1074, 1083 (9th Cir. 1999). “A bankruptcy court simply does not conduct an impr oper appellate review of a state court when it enforces an automatic stay that issues from its own federal statutory authority.” Id.-6-

Here, there is no indication that the Boulder Count y court violated the automatic stay. Indeed, when the bankruptcy court remanded the case to the Boulder County court, it granted relief from the st ay to allow that court to divide the marital property. Moreover, as Mrs. Ebel notes here, the issue that M r. Ebel now seeks to raise was fully litigated in the state court procee dings. See Aplt’s App. at 107- 143. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars such federal court challenges to sta te court rulings, and the bankruptcy court was thus wi thout jurisdiction to hear further disputes on this matter.

III. CONCLUSION Accordingly, we AFFIRM the district court’s decisio n.

Entered for the Court
Robert H. Henry Circuit Judge