the selfsame mortgage foreclosure proceedings. And the same is
true of any other claim that could arguably be advanced under the
Complaints' hodgepodge of quite unintelligible references to
other purported violations of plaintiffs' rights.

All of that being the case, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine also
dooms every substantive claim suggested by plaintiffs, for every
such claim necessarily implicates a collateral attack on the
state court's judgments of foreclosure. Those judgments are
presently in force and binding on Smiths and Dykes, and this
Court is without power to alter that.‘

As stated at the outset, then, federal subject matter
jurisdiction is absent here. Both Complaints and both these

actions are dismissed with prejudice.

Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge

Date: November 18, 2002
\

3 If Smiths and Dykes were truly the victims of malfeasance
in the respects that they charge in their Complaints, the state
courts were certainly available to hear their grievances and to
grant them appropriate relief. And if they have forfeited that
opportunity by inaction there, the federal judicial system is not
ordained to provide a remedial source for such inaction.

4



centuries (Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806))
is unquestionably missing.?

Next, the basic fact disclosed by the Complaints' otherwise
largely impenetrable thickets is that each plaintiff is
attempting to undo a mortgage foreclosure obtained in state court
proceedings. But anyone having a modicum of familiarity with the
federal system knows that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (Rooker v.
Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia
Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983)) precludes every

federal court other than the Supreme Court of the United States
from sitting in review over, or from upsetting, any such state
court judgment.

In that same respect, each Complaint's attempted reliance on
the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”)
and the Complaints' constant repetition of the term “RACKETEERS”
in characterizing each set of targeted defendants is similarly
flawed. It simply will not do for a plaintiff just to call out
“RICO!” and to expect that cry to suffice for federal
jurisdiction. In this instance, any potential viability of any

RICO claim also hinges on a determination of the invalidity of

2 Moreover, plaintiffs' unknown legal (or nonlegal) advisor
responsible for the current pleadings seems to lack the ability
to read as well as to understand legal concepts: Smiths'
Complaint 5 and Dykes! Complaint 4 refer to the amount in
controversy as exceeding $50,000, while 28 U.S.C. §1332 (a)
specifically requires that over $75,000 must be at issue.

3



Bhs onder rotttossn

SN ( United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois

yf As i sitting Judge if OF
serge Magistrate ude Milton L Shadur an Assigned Saige
CASE NUMBER 02 C 8223 DATE 11/18/2002
CASE Robert Leo Dykes vs. Federal National Mortgage
TITLE

of the motion being presented.)

[ln the following box (a) indicate the party filing the motion, ¢.g., plaintiff, defendant, 3rd party plaintiff, and (b) state briefly the nature

MOTION:

DOCKET ENTRY:

qd) oOo Filed motion of [ use listing in “Motion” box above.]

(2) a Brief in support of motion due

@) Oo Answer brief to motion due . Reply to answer brief due__.

(4) oO Ruling/Hearingon__—_—ssetfor___— at

(5) oO Status hearing[held/continued to] [set for/re-set for]on__setfor__—at

© Q Pretrial conference[held/continued to] [set for/re-set for]on___——s set for at_=

(?) Oo Trial[set for/re-set for]on at.

(8) a [Bench/Jury trial] [Hearing] held/continuedto__—__at

(9) Qo This case is dismissed [with/without] prejudice and without costs[by/agreement/pursuant to}
CUFRCP4(m) (Local Rule 41.1 OOFRCP41(a\(1) OO FRCP41(a)(2).

ao wf [Other docket entry] | Enter Memorandum Opinion and Order. As stated at the outset, federal

(11) @ [For further detail see order attached to the original minute order.]

subject matter jurisdiction is absent here. Both the Complaint and this action is dismissed with prejudice.

No notices required, advised in open court.

No notices required. umber of notices

Notices mailed by judge's staff.

Notified counsel by telephone.

a | Docketing to mail notices.

a | Mail AO 450 form. 1ynod Lorisia’s:
Copy to judge/magistrate judge. ¥y3d19 s n
courtroom 94: Wd 61 AON ZO
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_ fiitiashaits -
central Clerk's Office. mailing deputy initials



IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
| RICKIE ELDRIDGE SMITH, et al.,
Plaintiffs,
v. No. 02 C 8204
BANK ONE, N.A., et al.,

Defendants.

DOCKETED
Nov 2 0 2002

ROBERT LEO DYKES,
Plaintiff,
v. No. 02 C 32234

FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE
ASSOCIATION, INC., et al.,

Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

It appears that there is a nonlawyer somewhere out there who
has been engaged in dispensing incompetent legal advice to
unsuspecting “clients.” These two lawsuits, delivered to this
Court's calendar on the same day by our District Court's
computer-driven random assignment system, present Complaints that
were obviously drafted by the same person (although the
Complaints' allegations are somewhat tailored to the
circumstances of the individual plaintiffs, Rickie Eldridge Smith
and Valandra Wallace Smith (collectively “Smiths”) in 02 C 8204
and Robert Leo Dykes (“Dykes”) in 02 C 8223).

Any informed reader's review of the two Complaints confirms

O-



(1) that each of them would be a prime candidate for the space-
fillers that New Yorker magazine used to run under the caption
“Department of Clotted Nonsense” and (2) that Alexander Pope's
aphorism that “a little learning is a dangerous thing” remains
valid nearly three centuries later.’ But the one thing that
surely emerges from the welter of confused (and confusing)
allegations of each Complaint is that federal subject matter
jurisdiction is lacking. As our Court of Appeals has reconfirmed
in Cook v. Winfrey, 141 F.3d 322, 325 (7 Cir. 1998):

It is axiomatic that a federal court must assure itself

that it possesses jurisdiction over the subject matter

of an action before it can proceed to take any action

respecting the merits of the action. “The requirement

that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter

'spring[s] from the nature and limits of the judicial

power of the United States' and is 'inflexible and

without exception. '” ee iO. v. Citize: £ a

Better Environment, 118 S.Ct. 1003, 1012 (quoting

ansfiel . . Swan, 111 U.S. 379, 382).
Hence this Court is constrained to dismiss both these Complaints
and actions sua sponte.

To begin with, each Complaint 42 purports to look to
diversity of citizenship as a ticket of entry to the federal
courthouse door. But in both instances there are Illinois

citizens on both sides of the litigation, so that the total

diversity that has expressly been required for nearly two

+ Indeed, in the present situation that aphorism could well
be expanded to confirm that a lack of learning is an even more
dangerous thing.