UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-1016

PHILLIP ROUSSEAU; CARVEL MAYS, JR.; FRANK MARTIN; PAUL F. 

KENDALL,

Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v.

HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND; PAUL JOHNSON, Individually and in 

his Official Capacity as Deputy County Solicitor; LYNN 

ROBESON, Individually and in her Official Capacity as 

Assistant County Solicitor; MARSHA S. MCLAUGHLIN, 

Individually and in her Official Capacity as Director, 

Department of Planning and Zoning; ROBIN REGNER, 

Individually and in her Official Capacity as Administrative

Assistant to Hearing Examiner and Board of Appeals; LISA 

KENNY, Individually and in her Official Capacity as 

Administrative Assistant to the Director, Department of

Planning & Zoning; MICHELE L. LEFAIVRE, Individually and in 

her Official Capacity as Board of Appeals Hearing Examiner,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, District Judge. 

(1:09-cv-01079-JFM)

Argued: January 25, 2011 Decided: April 21, 2011

Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
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ARGUED: Susan Baker Gray, Highland, Maryland, for Appellants. 

Melissa Shane Whipkey, HOWARD COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Ellicott 

City, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Margaret Ann Nolan, 

County Solicitor, Louis P. Ruzzi, Senior Assistant County 

Solicitor, HOWARD COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Ellicott City, Maryland, 

for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Four residents and voters (“Residents”) of Howard County, 

Maryland, commenced this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against 

Howard County and five of its officers in their individual 

capacities, alleging numerous Fourteenth Amendment due process 

and equal protection violations with respect to state 

administrative and judicial proceedings. The district court 

dismissed the claims, finding that three of the residents had 

impermissibly split their claims between two cases and that the 

fourth did not have standing. This appeal followed.

We affirm the judgment of the district court, but we 

conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear 

this case under Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 

(1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 

460 U.S. 462 (1983).

The Residents allege “numerous due process violations . . . 

at the hands of various county Board[]s and agencies, and their 

attorneys and staff” during “the county’s administrative review” 

process. Many of these decisions were in the contexts of 

proposed development projects and land use. The complaint 

“challenges these actions, as well as the statutorily prescribed 

process in which most of these actions occurred as being 

fundamentally unfair and designed to ensure those participating 

in these processes will have no chance of being heard.” The 
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Residents allege that “each of them suffered harm to a protected 

interest as a result of the pattern and practice of Howard 

County to deny them due process in county administrative review 

and ‘appeals’ processes by a deliberate failure to follow rules, 

outright perversion of the process by various means including 

fraud, misrepresentation and collusion between the county and 

the developers, and by inherent structural defects in the law 

preventing any sufficient or legitimate process, let alone, 

constitutionally adequate due process.” They contend that their 

due process and equal protection rights were violated in the 

course of many hearings and proceedings, including hearings by 

the Howard County Board of Appeals and proceedings in Maryland 

state courts. They characterize their claims as “a challenge to 

the conduct of administrative proceedings and decisions” at the 

county level.

On appeal, the Residents argue that the district court 

erroneously dismissed their claims. With respect to the claims 

of three Residents, Kendall, Martin, and Rousseau, which were 

dismissed for claim splitting, they argue that “[t]he series of 

transactions or core operative facts in [this case] arise from a 

number of independent administrative hearings, decisions, 

defective administrative processes in those hearings, or failure 

to hold administrative hearings or give notice of decisions,” 

none of which they contend were implicated by the related case 
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which arose out of the same transactions. And they argue with 

respect to the fourth Resident, Mays, that he had standing 

because “plaintiffs have standing to bring suit if they allege a 

diminution of their right to vote.”

We do not reach the Residents’ arguments, however, because 

we conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear 

this case under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The Residents’ 

complaint asks that lower federal courts in effect exercise 

appellate review over numerous state administrative and judicial 

decisions, and under our system of federalism, the lower federal 

courts lack jurisdiction to sit as appellate tribunals over 

state administrative and judicial decisionmakers, absent 

explicit statutory authorization. See Rooker, 263 U.S. 413; 

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462; Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic 

Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2004) (holding that lower 

federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear “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”). Parties aggrieved by state administrative 

and judicial decisions must pursue review in state appellate 

tribunals, with the ultimate opportunity to petition the Supreme 

Court of the United States for review. See Exxon Mobil Corp., 

544 U.S. at 291-92. We note that decisions of the Howard County 
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Planning Board can be appealed to the Howard County Hearing 

Examiner, with further appeals to the Howard County Board of 

Appeals and the state court system, beginning with the Circuit 

Court for Howard County. See, e.g., Howard County Code, Rules 

of Procedure of the Board of Appeals, § 2.211(e) (providing for 

appeal from Board of Appeals to Circuit Court for Howard 

County). Indeed, the Residents acknowledge the existence of 

this process. They simply contest its sufficiency.

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment 

of dismissal.

AFFIRMED