## United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________ No. 98-1004

___________ Linda Snider; Robert Carver; * Donna Carver; Dennis Murphy; * Lea Murphy; Fred Thorp; Ruth * Thorp; Albert Teepen; Barbara * Teepen; Ronald Tavernaro; and * Barbara Tavernaro, All Parties * Above Individually and On Behalf * of All Others Similarly Situated, * * Appellants, * Appeal from the United States * District Court for the Western
v. * District of Missouri. * City of Excelsior Springs, Missouri; * Land Clearance for Redevelopment * Authority of Excelsior Springs, * Missouri; and Millennium Management * Company, * * Appellees. *

___________ Submitted: June 12, 1998 Filed: September 2, 1998

___________The Honorable Owen M. Panner, United States District Judge for the District 1 of Oregon, sitting by designation. T he Honorable Ortrie D. Smith, United States District Judge for the Western 2 District of Missouri.
-2- Befor e HANSEN and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, an d PANNER, District Judge.

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___________ MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
Aft er the plaintiff class filed a complaint alleging civil rights violations an d asking for damages and relief from a state court condemnation proceeding, the district court held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case and dismissed it. 2 We affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. The plaintiffs in this action purchased time-share interests for use at the Elm s Hotel in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. Each made a one-time cash payment, signed a time-share agreement, and agreed to pay annual fees. In return, the plaintiffs wer e permitted to reserve rooms on designated floors of the Elm s Hotel, or to exchange their time for stays at other resorts, for a specified number of days each year.
Desp ite the revenue from the time-share scheme, the Elms Hotel experience d financialdifficulties and filed for bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy court dismissed the
case a fter the creditors could not agree on a plan to resolve the hotel's financia l difficulties . Shortly thereafter, the City of Excelsior Springs (City) declared the hotel and surrounding properties a blighted area and condemned them.
The City and the Land Clearance and Redevelopment Agency (LCRA) t hen filed a petition in condemnation in a Missouri state court. The petition named nine of the-3-

time-share ho lders as representatives of a defendant class to represent the interests of the more than 800 time-sha re holders. The City and LCRA moved to certify the class and notifi ed the nine named class defendants. Shortly thereafter, the state court certified the class of timeshare holders. The state court then appointed commissioners, who valued the property being condemn ed and determined each defendant's interest in the condemnation award. The commissioners determined net damages of $675,000

. When the st ate court entered its order condemning the Elms Hotel, it found that si x deeds of tru st securing obligations in excess of $20 million that encumbered the hotel were entitled to priority and that the City and the LCRA were beneficiaries under those deeds

. The state court therefore gave the City and the LCRA superior rights an d interests to the property and the $675,000 condemnation award.

The time-share owners brought this action in federal district court, alleging that the City and the LCRA s ecretly planned the condemnation to eliminate the time-share interes ts so that the property could be redeveloped free of any encumbrances. Th e plaintiffs alleged that the time-share class was certified by the state court but did not parti cipate in the condemnation proceeding. They further alleged that notice was not sent to the c lass members until after the order of condemnation was signed. Th e plaintiffs maintained t

hat the actions that the City and the LCRA took in the course of the condemnation proceeding vi olated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because those actions denied the plaintiffs substantive due process rights, procedural due process rights, access to the courts, and the right to petition the government to redress gri evances. The plaintiffs also asserted st ate-law claims, including tortious interference with contract, breach of non-disturbance agreement, and interference with the right to quiet enjoyment.

II. Under the so-called Rooker-Feldman doctrine, a federal district court does not ha ve subject matter jurisdiction over challenges to state court decisions in judicia l proceedings. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. , 263 U .S. 413, 416 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman , 460 U.S. 462 , 476 (1983). Instead, federal-4-

review of state court decisions is vested exclusively in the United States Suprem e Court. See Feldman , 460 U.S. at 486. A federal district court has jurisdiction ove r constitutional challenges only if they are not inextricably intertwined with the claims asserted in the state court, see Keene Corp. v. Cass , 908 F.2d 293, 296 (8th Cir. 1990), anda state claim is inextricably intertwined if the federal challenge succeeds only t o the extent th at the state court wrongly decided the issues before it. See id. at 296-97. That is, Rooker-Feldmanprecludes a federal action if the relief requested in the federal acti on would effectively reverse the state court decision or void its holding. Landers Seed Co. v. Champaign Nat'l Bank , 15 F.3d 729, 732 (7th Cir. 1994), cert. denied 513 U.S. 811 (1994). Deciding whether Rooker-Feldman bars the plaintiffs' federal sui t theref ore requires that we determine what the state court held and whether the relie f that the plaintiffs requested in t heir federal action would void the state court's decision or would require us to determine that that decision was wrong. See Cha rchenko v. City of Stillwater , 47 F.3d 981, 983 (8th Cir. 1995).

The st ate court, as we indicated, entered an order approving the condemnation of th e Elms Hotel. Under Missouri law, the purpose of condemnation proceedings is " 'to ascertain and acquire title to the land sought for [public] purposes and to foreclose all outstanding claims and interests that are, or may be, asserted thereto by others.' " City of Columbia v. Baurichter , 713 S.W.2d 263, 26 6 (Mo. 1986) (emphasis omitted), quoting City of St. Louis v. Barthel , 166 S.W. 267, 272 (Mo. 1914). The state court's orde r thus had the effect under Missouri law of foreclosing all outstanding claims o r interests.

The p laintiffs' complaint alleges that the defendants violated federal and stat e laws by their actions in the course of the condemnation proceeding. They prayed for damages, attorneys' fees, and "to have their time share interests reinstated in the Elms Hotel and Resort." The state court, however, had already determined the relevan t damages from the condemnati on and had extinguished whatever property interests the plaintiffs may have had. F or the federal district court to order condemnation damages-5-

or to re instate property interests would require it to determine that the state court had decided the condemnation matter wrongly: In other words, the relief for which th e plaintiffs prayed would, if granted, effectively void the state court's judgment. Mos t importantly, the federal court would essentially be acti ng as an appeals court reviewing the state court judgment, which violates the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

The plaintiffs argue that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar their claim in federal court because they were not given proper notice in the state court an d therefore could not be "parties" who were bound bythe state court judgment. It is true that the Supreme Court has held that the Rooker-Feldman rule does not bar a federal claim brought by one who was not a partyto the state court action and therefore not in any posit ion to seek appellate review of the state court judgment. See Johnson v. De Grandy , 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06 (1994). The sta te court in this case, however, entered
an order c ertifying as a class those people holding time-share interests in the Elm s Hotel.

Whether that class certification and the time-share holders' subsequent treatment as parties was correctly decided by the state court is, again, not a n issue that the federal distric t court has jurisdiction to decide under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. T o determine that the plaintiffs here were not "parties" in the state court action woul d require us to hold that the state court wrongly certified the class and wrongly ordered a final judgment in the condemnation proceeding. As we have held before in a case in which the plaintiffs alleged insufficient notice in a state court action, there is n o pr ocedural due process exception to the Rooker-Feldman rule. See Postma v. Firs t Federal Savings & Loan of Sioux City , 74 F.3d 160, 162 n.3 (8th Cir. 1996).

The plaintiffs also argue that the Rooker-Feldman rule does not apply her e because the state court judgment is void. Citing Hansberry v. Lee , 311 U.S. 32 (1940), they ar gue that the judgment is void because the absent class members were no t adequately represented at trial. The United States Supreme Court, of course, had-6-

appel late jurisdiction to review and reverse the Illinois Supreme Court's decision i n Hansberry . Und er the Rooker-Feldman rule, in contrast, no federal district court has jurisdiction to decide that the state court judgment was void.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
A true copy.

Attest:
CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.