United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued August 10, 2022 Decided September 9, 2022

No. 21-5269

LARRY ELLIOTT KLAYMAN,

APPELLANT

v.

NEOMI RAO, HON., ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:21-cv-02473)

Larry Klayman, pro se, argued the cause and filed the 

briefs for appellant.

Kevin B. Soter, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief were 

Brian M. Boynton, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General, and H. Thomas Byron III, Attorney. Abby C. Wright, 

Assistant Director, entered an appearance.
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Before: HIGGINSON* and ERICKSON**, Circuit Judges, and 

SACK***, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM:

Larry E. Klayman appeals the sua sponte dismissal of his 

suit against Judges Colleen Kollar-Kotelly and Tanya S. 

Chutkan of the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia and all members of the United States Court of 

Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. For the 

following reasons, we AFFIRM.

I. 

This case arises from an earlier suit between Klayman and 

Judicial Watch, the organization he founded in 1994 and left in 

2003. That litigation has spawned a series of subsequent 

lawsuits over the course of nearly twenty years. In the initial 

lawsuit between Klayman and Judicial Watch (Judicial Watch 

I), Klayman sued the organization asserting a variety of claims. 

Judicial Watch counterclaimed. The Honorable Colleen 

Kollar-Kotelly of the United States District Court for the 

District of Columbia presided over the litigation for 

approximately sixteen years. The case eventually went to 

trial, and the jury returned a $2.3 million verdict against

Klayman. Klayman appealed, and this court affirmed. 

Klayman v. Judicial Watch, Inc., 6 F.4th 1301 (D.C. Cir. 2021). 

Klayman petitioned for rehearing en banc, which was denied. 

He then petitioned for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court, 

which was also denied. Klayman v. Judicial Watch, Inc., 142 

* Of the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation.

** Of the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation. *** Of the Second Circuit, sitting by designation.
3

S. Ct. 2731, reh’g denied, --- S. Ct. ----, 2022 WL 3021506 

(2022).

In 2019, following the jury verdict against him and the 

denial of his post-trial motions in Judicial Watch I, Klayman 

filed a separate complaint in the district court under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 60 (Judicial Watch II), seeking vacatur 

of the judgment in Judicial Watch I. That case was assigned 

to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan. The district court dismissed 

Klayman’s complaint, and this court affirmed. Klayman v. 

Judicial Watch, Inc., 851 F. App’x 222 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (per 

curiam). 

Following denial of rehearing en banc in Judicial Watch I, 

Klayman filed the pro se complaint at issue in this appeal. He 

named Judge Kollar-Kotelly, Judge Chutkan, and every 

member of this court as defendants. Klayman’s complaint 

alleges that the defendants violated his First, Fifth, and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights based on the actions and 

inactions he alleges they took in the prior litigation. The 

district court dismissed the case sua sponte. Klayman timely 

appealed. 

II. 

This court reviews a district court’s dismissal of a 

complaint de novo, Wash. All. of Tech. Workers v. U.S. Dep’t 

of Homeland Sec., 892 F.3d 332, 339 (D.C. Cir. 2018), and the 

denial of a motion to transfer venue for abuse of discretion. 

McFarlane v. Esquire Mag., 74 F.3d 1296, 1301 (D.C. Cir. 

1996).

III.

We have thoroughly reviewed the record, in particular the 

alleged evidentiary errors committed by the trial judge in 

Judicial Watch I. It seems clear to us that the instant suit is an 

attempt to relitigate prior decisions of the district court and of 
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this court. Klayman attempts to present the allegations in his 

complaint as independent violations of his constitutional rights,

but they are in fact accusations that the decisions of the district 

court and of this court are incorrect.1 Such claims are only 

reviewable, and in this case have been reviewed, on appeal and 

on writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court.2 See Celotex Corp. 

v. Edwards, 514 U.S. 300, 313 (1995) (“It is for the court of 

first instance to determine the question of the validity of the 

law, and until its decision is reversed for error by orderly 

review, either by itself or by a higher court, its orders based on 

its decision are to be respected.” (quoting Walker v. 

Birmingham, 388 U.S. 307, 314 (1967))). Klayman’s 

requested relief—vacatur of the judgment against him and a 

new trial—further illustrates that the instant suit is an attempt 

to relitigate the original Judicial Watch litigation. As such, the 

district court correctly dismissed this case sua sponte because 

it had no jurisdiction to review the decisions of another federal 

district court judge or of this court; the claims are barred by res 

1 For example, Klayman’s complaint alleges that the 

following “highly prejudicial errors” in the original Judicial Watch 

litigation, presided over by Judge Kollar-Kotelly, were “clear cut 

violations of Mr. Klayman’s sacrosanct due process rights”: 

imposing “an overly broad, draconian sanctions order,” granting 

partial summary judgment in favor of Judicial Watch, admitting 

“highly prejudicial, inflammatory statements,” “reading jury 

instructions that were erroneous,” and “entering judgment on the jury 

verdict.” This court addressed each of these alleged errors in 

Judicial Watch I. 6 F.4th at 1311-1321. Klayman similarly claims, 

and pressed at oral argument, that the panel of this court that decided 

Judicial Watch I violated his right to due process by “failing to 

reverse the jury verdict with regard to Judicial Watch’s trademark 

infringement and related claims” and that the full court did so again 

by denying his petition for rehearing en banc. 

2 See Judicial Watch I, 6 F.4th 1301; see also Judicial Watch 

II, 851 F. App’x 222.
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judicata; and Klayman was not entitled to injunctive relief 

because he had adequate, if unsuccessful, remedies at law.

First, the district court correctly dismissed this case 

because it lacked jurisdiction. “A federal district court lacks 

jurisdiction to review decisions of other federal courts.” 

Smalls v. United States, 471 F.3d 186, 192 (D.C. Cir. 2006); 

see also Partington v. Houck, 2014 WL 5131658, at *1 (D.C. 

Cir. Oct. 3, 2014) (“The district court correctly held that it 

lacked authority to declare void a decision of this court.”); 

Mullis v. U.S. Bankr. Ct. for the Dist. of Nev., 828 F.2d 1385, 

1392-93 (9th Cir. 1987) (“To allow a district court to grant 

injunctive relief against a bankruptcy court or the district court 

in the underlying bankruptcy case would be to permit, in effect, 

a ‘horizontal appeal’ from one district court to another or even 

a ‘reverse review’ of a ruling of the court of appeals by a district 

court. Such collateral attacks on the judgments, orders, decrees 

or decisions of federal courts are improper.”). As explained 

above, because the bases for the constitutional violations 

Klayman alleges are decisions made in separate legal 

proceedings by other district court judges, which have been 

affirmed by this court, adjudication of the instant case would 

necessarily involve review of the “decisions of other federal 

courts,” Smalls, 471 F.3d at 192, and granting Klayman the 

relief he requests would “void a decision of this court,” 

Partington, 2014 WL 5131658, at *1. Thus, the district court 

lacked jurisdiction over Klayman’s claims.3

3 Klayman argues that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

60(d)(1) grants the district court in the instant case the power to 

review and vacate the decisions of the district court and this court in 

Judicial Watch I. Rule 60(d)(1), however, merely makes clear that 

Rule 60 “does not limit a court’s power to . . . entertain an 

independent action to relieve a party from a judgment, order or 

proceeding.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(d)(1) (emphasis added). It does 

not affirmatively grant the courts any authority. Klayman cites no 
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Second, for similar reasons, Klayman’s claims would be 

barred by issue preclusion, a form of res judicata also known 

as collateral estoppel. Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94 n.5 

(1980). “Under collateral estoppel, once a court has decided an 

issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that decision may 

preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause 

of action involving a party to the first case.” Id. at 94. 

Moreover, “once an issue is raised and determined, it is the 

entire issue that is precluded, not just the particular arguments 

raised in support of it in the first case.” Yamaha Corp. of Am. 

v. United States, 961 F.2d 245, 254 (D.C. Cir. 1992). 

Klayman was a party to Judicial Watch I and Judicial Watch 

II, and he now seeks to relitigate issues that were raised and 

decided in that litigation. Therefore, his claims would be 

barred by res judicata.

Finally, this case was properly dismissed on the 

independent ground that Klayman had an adequate remedy at 

law and was therefore not entitled to injunctive or declaratory 

relief. It “is the basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that 

courts of equity should not act . . . when the moving party has 

an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury 

if denied equitable relief.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 

43–44 (1971); see also Richards v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 453 

F.3d 525, 531 n.6 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (“The general rule is that 

injunctive relief will not issue when an adequate remedy at law 

exists.”). Klayman’s right to appeal in Judicial Watch I and 

Judicial Watch II and to petition for review in the Supreme 

Court provided a remedy at law adequate to address any errors 

in the district courts’ judgments. See Wilson v. Schnettler, 365 

U.S. 381, 385 (1961) (holding that the “petitioner ha[d] a plain 

authority, nor are we aware of any, in which a litigant was allowed 

to collaterally attack another federal court’s judgment under Rule 

60(d)(1). As discussed above, such use of Rule 60(d)(1) is 

foreclosed by Celotex and related decisions of this court. 
7

and adequate remedy at law” by “an appeal to the Supreme 

Court of [his] State, and a right if need be to petition for ‘review 

by [the Supreme Court]’”). Because he had an adequate 

remedy at law, Klayman was not entitled to the equitable relief 

he sought in this case. Id.; see also Banks v. Office of Senate 

Sergeant-At-Arms & Doorkeeper of U.S. Senate, 471 F.3d 

1341, 1344 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (“We do not grant mandamus 

relief for the same reason: the appellant has an adequate 

remedy at law and may appeal the contested decision following 

a final judgment.”).

IV.

The district court properly denied Klayman’s request for a 

change of venue. Because two of the named defendants sit as 

judges on the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia, Klayman argues that all the judges of that court 

should have been recused or disqualified on the basis that their 

“impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” 28 U.S.C. § 

455(a). He further argues that because every judge of the 

district court should have been recused or disqualified, his 

complaint should have been transferred to another judicial 

district. First, the mere fact that this case challenges rulings 

made by other judges of the same court would not “lead a 

reasonable, informed observer to question the District Judge’s 

impartiality.” United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34, 

115 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Moreover, Klayman cites no authority 

for the proposition that recusal or disqualification of all judges 

in a judicial district is a basis for transfer of venue.

V.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is AFFIRMED.