# United Stat es Court of Appeals For the First C ircuit

No. 03-1979 FEDERACIÓN DE MAESTROS DE PUERTO RICO, Plaintiff, Appellant,

v. JUNTA DE RELACIONES DEL TRABAJO DE PUERTO RICO,

Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge ]

Before Selya, Lipez, and Howard, Circuit Judges .

Godwin Aldarondo-Girald , with whom Aldarondo-Girald Law Office was on brief, for appellant. Carlos E. L ópez L ópez , with whom Llovet, Zurinaga, & López, P.S.C. was on brief, for appellee.

May 27, 2005-2- LIPEZ, Circuit Judge . This case requires us to decide whether the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine applies to an interlocu t ory jurisdictional decision of the Puerto Rico appellate courts. While this case was under advisement, the Supreme Court unanimously decided Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp. , 125 S. Ct. 1517 (2005), which substantially altered our understanding of th e Rooker
- Feldman doctrine. We must now apply that alter e d understanding for the first time.

The pr esent case is not itself complex. Appell ant Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico ("Federación") is the target of an unfair labor practices gri eva nce before appellee Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, the Puert o R ico Labor Relations Board ("Board"). The Board denied the Federación's motion to dismiss the grievance on the ground of federal labor law preemption. The Federac ión appealed that denial on an interlocutorybasis to the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals and then to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. After losing the preemption argument in the Puerto Rico courts, the Federación filed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Board in the UnitedStates District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the Federación's claim because resolving that claim would require the court to review t he decisio n of the Puerto Rico courts that the Boardhad jurisdiction over the labor dispute, in contravention of1 The Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, though a

critical participant in the proceedings before the Board, is not a partyto the federal action and will not be re ferr ed to again. Consequently, our references to "the Federación" in the remainder of the opinion refer exclusively to appe llant, the Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico.

2 The Federación also asserted defenses under Puerto Rico law, which are not before us.

3 The Act grants the NLRB juris diction over charges of unfair labor practices "affecting commerce," which means interstate commerce. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 152(6)-(7), 160. That jurisdiction is exclusive and preempts state labor law. See San Diego Bldg. Trades Council v. Garmon , 359 U.S. 236, 244-45 (1959). Therefore, if the Federación's activities affected interstate commerce, the Board lacked jurisdiction over the grievance. -3- the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine. Consequent ly, t he district court dismissedthe complaint. We affirm, and explain how Exxon Mobil affects some of our prior Rooker
- Feldman cases. I. The relevant facts and procedural history are undisputed. In 1990, the Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, a labor union, filed an unfair labor practices charge before the Board ag ainst the appellant Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico. 1 I n 1995, the Board i ss ued a grievance (administrative complaint) against the Federación. The Federación then moved to dismiss the grievance on the grounds that the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") had exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute . 2 It contendedthat Puerto Rico labor law was preempted by the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-169 , because the Federación's activities affected interstate commerce. 3-4- In early 1996, an administrative judge issued an "InterlocutoryReport" con cluding that Puerto Rico labor law was preemp tedby federal law, and that the Board therefore lacked jurisdiction. However, the Board rejected the Interlocutory Report and denied the Federación's motion to dismiss.

After unsuccessfully requesting that the Board reconsider its decision, the Federación filed an interlocutory appeal to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. That court referred the appeal to the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. In 1997, the Court of Appeals, in a lengthyopinion and resolution, concluded that the Feder a ción's activities did not affect interstate commerce, affirmed the Board's jurisdictional decision, and remanded for further proceedings.

The Federación moved for reconsideration, which was deniedafter some delay. It then petitioned the Puerto Rico Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which, too, was denied. The Federación twice requested reconsideration of the denial of certiorari, and both requests were denied.

In November 1999, the Board issued a resolution ordering the continuation of the proce edi ngs. In these proceedings, the Federación continued to argue that the Board lacked jurisdiction.

In March 2003, the Federación filed a complaint against the Board in federal district court, requesting declaratory relief and an injunction ordering the Board to terminate its proceedings for lack of jurisdiction. The Board moved to dismiss the federal-5-

complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) on the basis that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review a decision of the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. The district court granted the motion, and the Federación timely appealed. II. Where no evidentiary hearing has been held, we review de
novo the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Wang v. N.H. Bd. of Regis trati on in Med. , 55 F.3d 698, 700 n.3 (1st Cir. 1995). "[W]e construe the Complaint liberally and treat all well-pleaded facts as true, according the plaintiff the benefit of all rea son able inferences." Murphyv. United States , 45 F.3d 520, 522 (1st Cir. 1995).

Under the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine, federal district courts lack jurisdiction over "federal complaints . . . [that] essentiallyinvite[] federal courts of first instance to review and
reverse unfavorable stat e-co urt judgments." Exxon Mobil , 125 S. Ct. at 1521; D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman , 460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co. , 263 U.S. 413 (1923). At first glance, this case appears to present a relatively straightforward Rooker
Feldman issue. The Puerto R ico Court of Appeals held that the Board has jurisdiction over the underlying labor dispute, and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court declined to disturb that judgment. The Federación's federal complaint, however, asks the court to declare that the Board did not have jurisdiction over the labor dispute.4 Because the district court and the parties frame the dispute

in terms of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine, we do not reach the questions of whether alternative doctrines such as abstention under Younger v. Harris , 401 U.S. 37 (1971), or refusal to grant declaratoryrelief under El Dia, Inc. v. Hernandez Colon , 963 F.2d 488 (1st Cir. 1992), would also have justified dismissal.

5 When Rooker was decided, the Supreme Court's ju risdictional statute provided for writ of error as well as certiorari, but was in most relevant respects similar to the present 28 U.S.C. § 1257. See Act of September 6, 1916, Pub. L. No. 64-258, ch. 448, sec. 2, -6- Thus, the Federación's complaint asked the district court "to review and reverse [an] unfavorable state-court judgment[]," Exxon Mobil , 125 S. Ct. at 1521.

However, the Federación argues that t he Puerto Rico court's decision was interlocutory, and that Rooker
- Feldman therefore does not apply. This argument draws some support from certain of our pre- Exxon Mobil precedents. In order to understand this argument, and why we now ultimately reject it, we must first describe the roots of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine, the somewhat uncert ain pa th that our jurisprudence has taken, and finally the clarification provided by Exxon Mobil . 4 A. Rooker and Feldman

The jurisdictional statute providing for Supreme Court review of state court judgments states that "[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State i n which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari" when certain federal questions are pr esented. 28 U.S.C. § 1257; 5 see also id. § 1258 (same for Puerto Rico Supreme§ 237, 39 Stat. 726 (1916).
6 In this opinion we will sometimes refer to § 1257 as a shorthandfor, collectively, both §§ 1257 and 1258. The differences between the two provisions are not relevant to the issues raised in this case. -7- Court). 6 Rooker held that Congress, by the terms of that statute, grantedthe United States Supreme Court, and only the United States Supreme Court, jurisdiction over appeals from state courts:

If the constitutional questions stated in the [federal complaint] actually arose in the [state case], it was the province and duty of the state courts to decide th em; a nd their decision, whether right or wrong, was an exercise of jurisdiction. . . . Unde r the legislation of Congress, no court of the UnitedStates other than this Court could entertain a proceeding to reverse or modify the judgment for errors of that character. To do s o w ould be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction. The jurisdiction possessed by the District Courts is strictly original. 263 U.S. at 415-16 (internal citation omitted). In other words, Rooker is based on a negative inference: because Congress only providedfor review of state court judgments by the Supreme Court, Congress therefore intended to preclude lower federal courts from
exe rcising such review. Feldman repeated this reasoning: "[ A ] UnitedStates District Court has no a uthori ty to review final judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings. Review of such judgments may be had only in this Court." 460 U.S. at 482.7 Al thou gh the statute itself has changed since Rooker was

decided, the changes have not been material to the present issue, see supra note 5, and the negative inference drawn in Rooker applies equally today. -8- B. Our Pre- Exxon Mobil Cases

1. Relevance of Availability of Supreme Court Review The close nexus between the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine and Supreme Court review prompts an obviou s ques tion: what if the Supreme Court could not have re viewedthe particular state court decision at issue ? Our pre- Exxon Mobil cases suggested that Rooker
- Feldman would not apply in this context. See Cruz v. Melecio , 204 F.3d 14, 21 n.5 (1st Cir. 2000) (stating, in dictum, that "denying jurisdiction based on a state court judgment that is not eligible for review by the United States Supreme Court simply would not follow from the jurisdictional statute that invigorated the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine in the first place"); 7 Hill v. Town of Conway , 193 F.3d 33, 40 (1st Cir. 1999) (because " Rooker
- Feldman is keyedto § 1257," it therefore requires a judgment reviewable by the Supreme Court). Under this logic, the scope of Rooker
- Feldman wouldbe limited to sta te court judgments susceptible to Supreme Court review -- in particular, final judgments, not interlocutory ord ers. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1257 (providing for review of "[f]i na l judgments or decrees" renderedby highest state courts), 1258 (same for Puerto Rico Supreme Court). Arguably, then, under Cruz and8 The two concepts of finality serve very different purposes.

The purpose of the final judgment rule of § 1257 is to prevent the Supreme Court from considering a case that has not reached final judgment. It applies "vertically" within a single case's progress up through the appellate hierarchy. By contrast, the purpose of res judicata (and its federal statutory codification, 28 U.S.C. § 1738) is to prevent federal and sister state tr ial c ourts from hearing a case that has reached final judgment. It applies "horizontally" to parallel litigation or collateral attacks. Moreover, whether a state court judgment is final for purposes of § 1257 is a question of federal law, Gotthilf v. Sills , 375 U.S. 79, 80 (1963) (per curiam), but whether it is final for purposes of preclusion is a question of state law, Royv. City of Augusta , 712 F.2d 1517, 1520 (1st Cir. 1983). -9- Hill , Rooker
- Feldman wouldnot apply to interlocutory orders. That is the argument that the Federación makes here.

2. Relevance of Preclusive Effect Under State Law Our pre- Exxon Mobil case law also recognized, albeit not uniformly, an alternative conception of "final judgment." The law of claim and issue preclusion (also known as res judicata and collateral estoppel) provides a notion of "final judgment" that is relate dt o, but distinct from, finality for purposes of Supreme Court review. 8 We have suggested, in some of our cases, that "[o]nlya state court adjudication that itself has preclusive effect can bring the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine into play." Cruz , 204 F.3dat 21 n.5; see also Badillo-Santiago v . N aveira-Merly , 378 F.3d1, 6 (1st Cir. 2004) (" Rooker
- Feldman applies to state or territorial court judgments to which the federal courts would accordpreclusive effect, and the federal courts 'ca n ascr ibe no greater preclusive force to a state court judgment than would the9 The "preclusive effect" requirement derives not from

construction of § 1257, but rather from policy considerations. The most commonly statedrationale for a preclusive effect requirement is that it would be odd for Rooker
- Feldman "to bar an action in federal court when that same action would be allowed in the state court of the rendering state." Davis v. Bayless , 70 F.3d 367, 376 (5th Cir. 1995). -10- courts of that state.'") (quoting Cruz , 204 F.3d at 21; internal citation omitted); Pér ez-Guz mán v. Gracia , 346 F.3d 229, 238 n.5 (1st Cir. 2003) (same), cert. denied , 541 U.S. 960 (2004). 9

Yet we have also stated, in apparent contradiction to the above cases, that Rooker
- Feldman does not require a decis ion to hav e state law preclusive effect. See Maymó-Meléndez v . Álvarez-Ramírez , 364 F.3d 27, 32-33 (1st Cir.) ( Rooker
- Feldman is "broader and blunter" than res judicata, and does not impose res judicata's technical requirements, "[s]o, despite the disapproval of scholars, federal courts regularly use Rooker
- Feldman to rebuff coll ateral attacks on prior state court judgments without purporting to apply the technical preclusion rules of res judicata"), cert. denied , 125 S. Ct. 110 (2004); Mandel v. Town of Orleans , 326 F.3d 267, 271 (1st Cir. 2003) (" Rooker
- Feldman applies whether or not the federal and state causes of action are technically the same for purposes of claim preclusion, or whether all of the familiar conditions for issue preclusion are met.") (citation omitted); Sheehan v. Marr , 207 F.3d35, 40 n.5 (1st Cir. 2000) (noting that "res judicata . . . and Rooker
- Feldman are separate doctrines, [although] they have a 'close affinity' to one-11-

another," and quotin g C harchenko v. City of Stillwater , 47 F.3d 981, 983 n.1 (8th Cir. 1995), for th e p roposition that

" Rooker
- Feldman is broader than claimand issue preclusion because it does not depend on a final judgment on the merits"). C. Exxon Mobil

These tests of state court judgment finality in our application of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine have now been superseded bythe explanation of that doctrine in Exxon Mobil . We briefly summarize that case for context.

Saudi Basic Industries Corporation sue d Exxon Mobil in Delaware state court for a declaratory judgment that it did not owe Exxon Mobil any money from a contractual agreement; Exxon Mo bil counterclaimedfor the mo ney. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil filed a declaratoryjudgment action in federal court as an "insurance policy" in case it lost the state court lawsuit. The state case went to judgment first, and the jury found for Exxon Mobil, awarding it a large verdict on its counterclaim. Saudi Basic appe aled the judgment to the Delaware Supreme Court. See 125 S. Ct. at 1524-25.

Meanwhile, the federal action proceeded. Exxon Mobil's claims in federal court were essentially identical to its defenses andcounterclaims in state court. On an interlocutoryappea l relatedto foreign sovereign immunity, the Third Circuit sua sponte concludedthat Exxon Mobil's claims were identical to claims-12-

actuallylitigated in state court, and ordered the claimdismissed pursuant to the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine. See id. at 1525-26.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding: The Rooker
- Feldman doctrine . . . is confined to cases of the kind from which t he d octrine acquiredits name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries causedby state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commencedand inviting district court review andrejection of those judgments. Rooker
Feldman does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the circumscribeddoctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions. Id. at 1521-22. The Court specifically limited the doctrine to cases in the procedural posture of Rooker and Feldman themselves:

Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances in which this Court's appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28 U.S.C. § 1257, precludes a United States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction in an action it would otherwise be empowered to adjudicate under a congressional grant of authority[.] In both cases, the losing party in s tate court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury causedby the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment. Plaintiffs in both cases, alleging federal-question jurisdiction, called upon the District Court to overturn an injurious state-court judgment. Because § 1257, as long interpreted, vests authority to review a state court's judgment solely in this Court, the District Courts in Rookerand Feldman lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Id. at 1526 (citations omitted).-13- In short, the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine now applies only in the "limited circumstances" where "the losing partyin state court filedsuit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review andrejection of that judgment." Id. The doctrine "does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augm ent the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions." Id. at 1522. III.

Exxon Mobil tells us wh en a state court judgment is suff icientlyfinal for operation of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine: when "the state proceedings [have] ended." 125 S. Ct. at 1526. If federal litigation is initiated before state proce ed ings have ended, then -- e ven if the federal plaintiff expects to lose in state court and hopes to win in federal court -- the litigation is parall el, and the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine does not deprive the court of jurisdiction. See id. at 1526-28. On the other hand, if federal litigation is initiated after state proceedings have ended, andthe plaintiff implicitly or explicitly "seek[s] review and rejection of [the state] judgment," id. at 1526, then a federal suit seeking an opposite result is an impermissible attempt to appeal the state judgment to the lower federal courts, and, under Rooker
- Feldman , the federal courts lack jurisdiction.-14- As noted above, our prior tests of f inality involved appeal abil ityunder § 1257 and/or state law preclusive effect. Under Exxon Mobil , the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine applies when the losing party in state court files suit in federal court "after the state proceedings ended." We now explore what it means for state proceedings to have "ended," and explain how this test differs from the tests we had set forth before Exxon Mobil .

Generally speaking, state proceedings will have "ended" in three situations. Two are obvious; the third perhaps is not.

First, when the high est st ate court in which review is available has affirmed the judgment below and nothing is left to be resolved, then without a doubt the state proceedings have "ended." In this situation, the state court judgment would constitute a "[f]inal judgment[] or decree[] rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had" under § 1257, it would carrypreclusive effect in virtually every state, and -- most relevant here -- it would qualify under Exxon Mobil 's "ended" test.

Second, if the state action has reached a poi nt where neither party seeks further action, then the state proceedings have also "ended." For example, if a low er state court issues a judgment and the losing partyallows the time for appeal to expire, then the state proceedings have ended. In this situation, the judgment would carry preclusive effe ct i n virtually every state. It wouldusually not, however, be an appealable "[f]inal judgment[]10 Amore subtle version of this scenario is where the lower

state court does not issue a judgment but merely an interlocutory order (e.g., a discovery order determining whether certain documents w ere pr ivileged), and the parties then voluntarily terminate the litigation. In this case, the state court issue would be neither appealable under § 1257 nor preclusive under the preclusion law of most states. Nevertheless, the state proceedings have ended, and the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine precludes either party from later challenging the order in federal court. -15- or decree[] rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had" under § 1257. Nevertheless -- and this is what matters -- it qualifies under Exxon Mobil 's "ended" test. 10

Third, if the state co urt pr oceedings have finally resolvedall the federal questions in the litigation, but state law or purely factual questions (whether great or small) remain to be litigated, then the state proceedings have "ended" within the meaning of Rooker
- Feldman on the federal questions at issue. We infer this meaning from a footnote in Exxon Mobil that provides an example of a federal suit that would be subject to Rooker
- Feldman even though the state court litigation was still ongoing.

The example is a hypothetical propounded in ASARCO Inc.
v. Ka dish , 490 U.S. 605 (1989). According to the Exxon Mobil Court, the hypo the tical would fit within the reach of the reformulated Rooker
- Feldman doctrine, even though the litigation had not completely ended, because the state proceedings had ended
as to all federal questions. Exxon Mobil , 125 S. Ct. at 1524 n.2.

In ASARCO , the plaintiffs sought state court declaratory andinjunctive relief against an Arizona mineral leasing statute on11 Cox Broadcasting defines four situations in which a non-final

judgment will nevertheless be considered "final" for purposes of § 1257: [(1)] there are further proceedings -- even entire trials

-- yet to occur in the state courts bu t where fo r one reason or another the federal issue is conclusive or the outcome of further proceedings preordained.

. . . -16- the g rounds of, inter alia , federal preemption. See 490 U.S. at 610. The trial court upheld the statute, but the Arizona Supreme Court reversed, and "remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to enter summary judgment for [plaintiffs], to enter
a judgment declaring [the state law] invalid, and to consider what further relief, if any, might be appropriate." Id. The defendants peti tion edfor certiorari, which the United States Supreme Court granted. Id. at 610.

The pl aintiffs, with the United States as amicus, contendedthat the Court lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. They raisedtwo distinct jurisdictional arguments: that the state court judgment was not a "final judgment" under § 1257 because matters of relief remaine d t o be litigated, and that the case was nonjusticiable because, althou g h the plaintiffs had standing to fil e the suit under state law, they did not have standi ng unde r Article III. See id. at 611-12.

The Supreme Court rejectedboth arguments. It held that § 1257 jurisdiction was available under the doctrine of Cox Broadc asting Corp. v. Cohn , 420 U.S. 469 (1975), 11 and that, e ve n[(2)] the federal issue, finally decided by the highest

court in the State, will survive and require decision regardless of the outcome of future state-court proceedings.

. . . [(3)] the fe dera l claim has been finally decided, with further proceedings on the merits in the state courts to come, but in which later review of the federal issue cannot be had, whatever the ultimate outcome of the case.

. . . [(4)] the federal issue has been finally decided in the state courts with further proceeding s pe nding in which the party seeking review here might prevail on the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review of the federal issue by this Court, and where reversal of the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive o f any further litigation on the relevant cause of action rather than merely controlling the na ture and character of, or determining the admissibility of evidence in, the state proceedings still to come . . . [and] refusal immediately to review the state-court decision might seriously erode federal policy . . . . 420 U.S. at 479-83. -17- though the plaintiffs would not have been able to file the suit in federal court initially, the defendants nevertheless had standing to bring the appeal. See ASARCO , 490 U.S. at 612, 617-19.

The Court also rejected the Unit ed S tates's suggestion that the defendants had to seek relief through a federal declaratoryjudgment action. Id. at 620. The Court observed that such an action would require the federal court "to readjudicate the verysame issues that were determi ned in the state-court proceedings below," and "in essence[] would be an attempt to obtain direct review of the Arizona Supreme Court's decision in the lower federal courts" in violation of Rooker
- Feldman . Id. at 622-23.-18- ASARCO , to summarize, was a case where state proceedings hadnot completely ended, but all federal questions ha d b een finallyresolved. The ASARCO Court held that the case had reached
su fficie nt finality both to confer § 1257 jurisdiction under Cox Broadcasting , andto invoke Rooker
- Feldman against any hypothetical federal action concerning the same questions. A footnote in Exxon Mobil reaffirms that position:

The injury of which the [ ASARCO ] petitioners (the losing parties in state court) couldhave complainedin the hypothetical federal suit w o uldhave been caused by the state court's invalidation of their mineral leases, and the relief they would have sought would have been to undo the state court's invalidation of the statute. The hypothetical suit in ASARCO , therefore, shares the characteristics of the suits in Rooker and Feldman , i.e., loser i n state court invites federal district court to overturn state-court judgment. 125 S. Ct. at 1524 n.2. Thus, Exxon Mobil 's explanation of the ASARCO hypothetical confirms that Rooker
- Feldman applies where the state proceeding has ended with respect to the issues that the federal plaintiff seeks to have reviewed in federal court , even if other matters remain to be litigated.

This scenario prompts the question of how the lower federal courts should determine whether a state proceeding, still ongoing in some form, has ended with respect to a particular federal issue. We infer from Exxon Mobil that the Cox Broadcasting test of finality should be used for this purpose by the following reasoning . Exxon Mobil confirms that the ASARCO state court12 For example, if a lower state court issues a judgment and the

losing party allows the time for appeal to expire, then the state proceedings have ended, but § 1257 jurisdiction would o rdin arily not be available.

13 Byco ntra st, a preclusive state court judgment is not sufficient to trigger the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine. In most states, a trial court judgment acquires preclusive effect as soon as it issues. See , e.g. , O'Brien v. Hanover Ins. Co. , 692 N.E.2d 39, 44 (Mass. 1998); Bartlett v. Pullen , 586 A.2d 1263, 1265 (Me. 1991); Silva v. Silva , 404 A.2d 829, 832 (R.I. 1979). While the state court judgment is pending on appeal, it carries preclusive effect, but (in most cases) the state proceedings have not yet "ended." -19- litigation was sufficiently final (i.e., had "ended") for purposes of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine. See id. And ASARCO concluded that the state court litigation there was sufficiently final for Supreme Court review because it satisfied the Cox Broadcasting test. See 490 U.S. at 612. In short, Exxon Mobil and ASARCO , read together, suggest that if state court litigation is suff icient ly final for Supreme Court review, then it is sufficiently final for purposes of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine.

Of course, Cox Broadcasting itself o nly answers the question of whether § 1257 jurisdiction is immediately available, whereas ou r pr esent question is whether state proceedings have "ended." And we hasten to repeat tha t a proceeding may have "ended" under Exxon Mobil even when § 1257 jurisdiction would not have been available. 12 However, while appealability under § 1257 is not necessaryto satisfy the Exxon Mobil "ended" test, it will almos t al ways be sufficient . 13 Put another way, if a state court decision is final enough that the Supreme Court does have14 We do not decide how to apply Exxon Mobil in cases where the

state proceedings have, for all practical purposes, ended as to the federal issue, but the Cox Broadcasting exceptions do not apply. -20- jurisdiction over a direct appeal, then it is final enough that a lower federal court do es not have jurisdiction over a collateral attack on that decision. Therefor e, e xcept in unusual circumstances, if § 1257 jurisdiction would have been available under Cox Broadcasting , then the state proceed ings have sufficiently"ended" for purposes of Exxon Mobil . 14 Of course, the op posite does not follow; as stated above, there are man y situations where § 1257 ju risdic tion would not be available, and yet state proceedings have ended. But where § 1257 jurisdiction is available -- either because an appeal has progressed to "final judgment," or under one of the Cox Broadcasting exceptions -- then, for purposes of the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine, state proceedings will ordinarily be deemed to have "ended." IV. Exxon Mobil means that our prior tests o f fi nality (appealabilityunder § 1 257 an d preclusive effect) are no longer applicable for Rooker
- Feldman purposes . S imply put, a state proceeding may meet the "ended" te st o f Exxon Mobil even if it fails one or both of those prior tests. Consequently, the applicabilityof the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine no longer turns on whether the state court decision was "final" or "preclusive." Rather, we examine the posture of the case in the state court ---21-

i.e., whether "state proceedings [have] ended," 125 S. Ct. at 1526 -- and the relief sought in the federal court.

This conclusion conflicts, to some extent, with some of
our precedents. "Ordinarily, newly constituted panels in a multi-panel circuit should consider themselves bound by prior panel decisions." Eulitt v. Me. Dep't of Educ. , 386 F.3d 344, 349 (1st Cir. 2004). However, an exception applies "when a preexisting panel opinion is undermined by subsequently announced controlling authority, such as a decision of the Supreme Court." Id.

That is the case here. Exxon Mobil holds that federal courts lack jurisdiction to review a state court judgment in a federal case initiated "after the state proceedings ended." 125 S. Ct. a t 1526. W hile such judgments will often qualify as "final judgments" under § 1257 and/or carry state law preclusive effect, neither § 1257 finality nor state law prec lusive effect is necessary under the Exxon Mobil test.

Consequently, we recognize that Exxon Mobil has effectivelyabrogate d th e dictum in Cruz stating that "denying jurisdiction based on a state court judgment that is not eligible for review by the United States Supreme Court simply would not follow from th e j urisdictional statute that invigorated the Rooker
- Feldman doctrine in the first place," 204 F.3d at 21 n.5, andthe similar statement in Hill ho lding that, because " Rooker
Feldman is keyed to § 1257," it therefore requires a judgment-22-

immediatelyreviewable by the Supreme Court, 193 F.3d at 40. Under Exxon Mobil , state proceedings may have "ended" even though § 1257 review would not be available.

Similarly, we recognize that Exxon Mobil has effectively abrogated Badillo-Santia go , Pérez-Guzmán , and Cruz to the extent that theystate that Rooker
- Feldman doctrine only applies to state court judgments with preclusive effect. See Badillo-Santiago , 378 F.3dat 6 (" Rooker
- Feldman appli es to state or territorial court judgments to which the federal courts would accord preclusive effect, and the federal courts 'can ascribe no greater preclusive forc e to a st ate court judgment than would the courts of that state.'") (quoting Cruz , 204 F.3d at 21)); Pérez-Guzmán , 346 F.3d at 238 n.5 ("'[O]nly a state court adjudication that itself has preclusive effect can bring the Rooker
- Fel dman d octrine into play.'") (quoting Cruz , 204 F.3d at 21 n.5); Cruz , 204 F.3d at 21 n.5 ("Onlya sta te court adjudication that itself has preclusive effect can bring the Rooker-Feldman doctrine into play."). Under Exxo n Mo bil , state law preclusive effect is simply not determinative. V.

We now apply the Rooker
- Feldman clarifications provided by Exxon Mobil to this case. As we understand it, the Federación posits that the Puerto Rico court's decision was interlocutory, that § 1258 does not give the Supreme Court jurisdiction over15 The Federación contends that, despite losing its

jurisdictional argument m ulti ple times before both the Board and the Puer to Rico courts, it has not lost its right to request further review of i ts jurisdictional defense before those very tribunals. Since it might yet prevail on this defense, the Federación reasons, the Puerto Rico decision is not final -- or, in the language of Exxon Mobil , the state proceedings have not ended. We consider it highly unlikely that the Federación could yet persuade the Puerto Rico courts that they lack jurisdiction. The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals conclude d th at the Federación's activities neither "impact[] nor substantially impede[] . . . the flow of commerce between Puerto Rico and any other state, territory of the United States or country," and consequently that "t h e [Board] did not err when it decided that it had jurisdiction t o deal with the case of record." (emphasis deleted). This holding appears to create law of the case and leave little room for further argument concerning the Board's jurisdiction. -23- interlocutory (non-final) judgments, and that, therefore, Rooker
Feldman should not app ly. U nder Rooker
- Feldman , as clarified by Exxon Mobil , these arguments are largely irrelevant.

Rather, what matters is that the state court proceedings have ended with regard to the sole federal issue, namely, whether the Board's jurisdiction is preempted by the NLRA. That jurisdictional question is separate and independent from the merits of the dispute. It logically should be, and has been, decided in advance of a trial on the merits. Moreover, the Pue rto Rico Supreme Court has declined to disturb the lower court's decision, thus exhausting th e p ossibility of further review in the Puerto Rico court system. 15

We find that this case falls neatly within one of the situations described in Cox Broadcasting :-24- [W]here the federal issue has been finally decidedin the state courts with further proceedings pending in which the party seeking review [in the Supreme Court] might prevail on the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review of the federal issue by [the Supreme] Court, and where reversal of the state cou rt on the federal issue would be preclusive of any further litigation on the relevant cause of action

. . . if a refusal immediately to review the state-court decision might seriously erode federal policy, the Court [has jurisdiction]. 420 U.S. at 482-83; see also Belknap, Inc. v. Hale , 463 U.S. 491, 497 & n.5 (1983) (accepting jurisdiction over state court decision that unfair labor practice charge brought in state court was not within jurisdiction of NLRB); Local No. 438 Constr. & Gen. Laborers Union v. Curry , 371 U.S. 542, 548-50 (1963) (accepting jurisdiction
over state court's injunction against labor union picketing; issue to be further litigated on the merits was legality of picketing, which was entirely separate from the union's federal defense, that NLRB's jurisdiction over labor dispute was exclusive); cf. Mitchell
v. Forsyth , 472 U.S. 511, 525 n.8 (1985) ("[S]tate-court decisions rejecting a party's federal-law claim that he is not subject to suit before a particular tribunal are 'final' for purposes of our certiorari jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 125 7." ). If an interlocutorystate decision on a federal issue wouldbe reviewable bythe Supreme Court under one of the Cox Broadcasting exceptions,16 Again, the relevance of Cox Broadcasting is not that

appealabilityunder § 1257 is required in order for the proceedings to have "ended" under Exxon Mobil . But when an interlocutory state court decision is appealable under Cox Broadcasting , then the "ended" test, as we construe it, will almost always be satisfied. -25- then (absent unusual circumstances not present here) state court proceedings have "ended" for purposes of Exxon Mobil . 16

With these issues resolved, this case turns out to be as simple as it first appeared. The Federación litigated its federal labor law preemption defense before the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. That court found that the Federación was not engaged in interstate commerce and that the Board's jurisdiction was not preempted by federal labor law; the Puerto Rico Supreme Court did not disturb that judgment. The Federación's subsequent federal claimseeks a declaration that the Board's jurisdiction was preempted by federal labor law. That claim could succeed only if the federal court were to hold that the Puerto Ric o dec ision was incor rect. As in Rooker and Feldman , here "the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment andseekin g revi ew and rejection of that judgment," Exxon Mobil , 125 S. Ct. at 1526. Consequently, the district court lacked jur isdiction to review the state court decision, despite t h e interlocutorynature of the P uer to Rico courts' decisions. The district court properly dismissed the complaint.

Affirmed .