Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not *

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH CIR.

R. 47.5.4.

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 08-30361

LAC REAL ESTATE HOLDINGS, L.L.C. AND CARMA HOLDINGS, L.L.C.

Plaintiffs-Appellants

v.

BILOXI MARSH LANDS CORPORATION; THE MABEL ISABEL MOLERO

QUATROY REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST; DOROTHY LOUISE O’TOOLE

BENGE; PATRICIA C. O’TOOLE; LENA R. TORRES, CLERK OF COURT

OF ST. BERNARD PARISH; JACK A. STEPHENS, SHERIFF OF ST.

BERNARD PARISH; MARLENE VINSANAU, ASSESSOR OF ST.

BERNARD PARISH

Defendants-Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Louisiana

USDC No. 2:07-CV-02962

Before DAVIS, SMITH and OWEN, Circuit Judges.

DAVIS, Circuit Judge*

Plaintiffs LAC Real Estate Holdings, L.L.C. and Carma Holdings, L.L.C.

appeal the judgment of the district court staying this case in favor of parallel

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

F I L E D

April 8, 2009

Charles R. Fulbruge III

Clerk
No. 08-30361

2

state court litigation. Based on our conclusion that this case presents an

exceptional circumstance to which Colorado River abstention applies, we affirm.

I. 

This case involves a dispute concerning the entitlement to gas royalties

from a parcel of marsh land in St. Bernard Parish. The state litigation

commenced when Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation (Biloxi) filed a Petition for

Possessory Action (the Possessory Action ) in the 34 Judicial District Court in th

St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana (State Trial Court) in November 2001. Two sets

of defendants were named: (1) the Mabel Isabel Molero Quatroy Revocable

Living Trust; Dorothy Louise O’Toole Benge; Patricia C. O’Toole (collectively

Molero), and (2) LAC Real Estate Holdings, L.L.C. and Carma Holdings, L.L.C.

(collectively LAC). In the Possessory Action, Biloxi is seeking to have the court

determine which party has the right to possess certain property, described as the

entirety of Sections 1, 2, and 3, Township 13 South, Range 16 East, St. Bernard

Parish, Louisiana (the Property). 

Several months later, Molero, one of the defendant groups in the

Possessory Action, filed a separate suit with the State Trial Court claiming

ownership of the Property and seeking to enjoin Biloxi and LAC from

trespassing (Declaratory Judgment Action). Because this action involved

common issues of law and fact, the same Property, and the same parties, the

State Trial Court consolidated Molero’s suit with the Possessory Action. 

The two oil companies that took leases from all of the parties and that

discovered and are producing natural gas from the Property filed concursus suits

in the State Trial Court. The concursus proceedings named Biloxi, LAC, and

Molero as defendants and required the parties to assert their respective claims

of ownership to the Property (and the royalties resulting from production from

the Property). The State Trial Court also consolidated the concursus cases with
No. 08-30361

3

the previously consolidated Possessory Action and Declaratory Judgment Action

(collectively, the Consolidated Actions). 

Biloxi filed a Motion to Set Litigation Procedure in the Consolidated

Actions in which it argued that the court must first determine who is in

possession of the Property prior to determining the issue of ownership. The

State Trial Court disagreed and denied the motion. Biloxi then sought review

of that order. The Louisiana Fourth Circuit granted Biloxi’s writ in part, stating

that the State Trial Court must determine possession before ownership because

under Louisiana law the burden of proof on the party seeking to establish

ownership is more onerous if an adverse party is entitled to possession. The

Louisiana Supreme Court denied Molero’s subsequent application for a writ of

certiorari. 

LAC made several more attempts to challenge the order in which the

Consolidated Actions would proceed. First, LAC filed a Motion for Partial

Summary Judgment challenging the validity of a 1914 tax sale to a party in

Biloxi’s chain of title to the Property. LAC’s motion contended that the tax sale

was void for lack of notice and argued that the sale violated the due process

rights of LAC’s predecessors in title under Mennonite Board of Missions v.

Adams, 462 U.S. 791, 800 (1983), and Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust

Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950). The State Trial Court stayed the motion until the issue

of possession was resolved. LAC appealed and the Louisiana Fourth Circuit

denied the writ. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied LAC’s application for a

writ of certiorari. 

Next, LAC filed a motion to set the Motion for Partial Summary Judgment

for hearing. The State Trial Court granted the motion after a hearing, but, upon

appeal by Biloxi, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit reversed, restating its original

order that the trial court must first determine whether relator has the right to
No. 08-30361

4

possession before considering the issue of ownership. The Louisiana Supreme

Court denied LAC’s application for writ of certiorari. 

LAC then filed two state court suits in the 34 Judicial District to annul th

two tax sales in the chain of title to the Property. The tax sales occurred in

1914 and 1929. Biloxi and Molero filed exceptions of lis pendens and

prematurity. The state court granted those exceptions and dismissed the suits.

Finally, LAC filed this federal suit alleging a violation of its due process

rights. In its complaint, LAC sought a “hearing and order directing the Clerk

of Court of St. Bernard Parish to cancel the said unconstitutional 1914 and 1929

tax sales” and “a judgment declaring the amount of any back taxes which

plaintiffs may owe as a result of the cancellation of the tax sales and tax

confirmation.” Biloxi filed a motion to dismiss, or alternatively stay the

proceedings. 

The district court’s ruling on the motion is not entirely clear. During the

hearing on the motion, the district court discussed Colorado River abstention

and the factors the district court is required to consider under that doctrine. At

the end of the hearing, the district court also discussed the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine and concluded that if the federal district court entered a judgment in

this case, it would be “tacitly, if not directly, reversing decisions of prior

appellate courts in this particular matter.” The district court stated that it

would not grant the motion to dismiss but rather would abstain under RookerFeldman and adopted the arguments filed by Biloxi in support of the motion.

Biloxi argued both Rooker-Feldman and several bases for abstention, including

Colorado River abstention, in support of its motion. We read the district court’s

statements as making two alternative holdings: to abstain under RookerFeldman and to abstain under Colorado River as discussed in the hearing and

argued in Biloxi’s brief in support of the motion. LAC timely appealed. 

II. 
No. 08-30361

We note also that if Rooker-Feldman had applied, the district court would have been 1

without jurisdiction to consider the case and the proper remedy would have been to dismiss,

rather than stay, the case. 

5

 The Rooker-Feldman doctrine arises from two cases, Rooker v. Fidelity

Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v.

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). In those cases, the Supreme Court explained that

lower federal courts lack the power to modify or reverse state court judgments

because 28 U.S.C. § 1257 vests exclusive jurisdiction to review or modify a state

court judgment in the Supreme Court. “The Rooker-Feldman doctrine . . . is

confined to cases of the kind in which the doctrine acquired its name: 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.” Exxon Mobile

Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). 

Rooker-Feldman has no application to this case. LAC is not “the losing

party in state court . . . after the state proceedings ended.” Id. at 291. The state

court proceedings are still pending and no final judgment has been rendered.

Rather this case involves parallel state and federal litigation, in which

circumstance “[c]omity or abstention doctrines may . . . permit or require the

federal court to stay or dismiss the federal action in favor of the state-court

litigation.” Id. at 292. 

1

III. 

We turn then to consider whether the district court properly stayed the

federal case in deference to the state court proceedings. We review a district

court’s decision to stay a case pending the outcome of parallel proceedings in

state court for abuse of discretion. Kelly Inv., Inc. v. Cont’l. Common Corp., 315

F.3d 494, 497 (5th Cir. 2002). We review de novo whether the requirements of
No. 08-30361

6

a particular abstention doctrine are satisfied. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v.

Unauthorized Practice of Law Comm., 283 F.3d 650, 652 (5th Cir. 2002). 

Colorado River abstention is applied to avoid duplicative litigation when

parallel proceedings are pending in federal and state court. Diamond Offshore

Co. v. A & B Builders, 302 F.3d 531, 538-40 (5th Cir. 2002). “Suits are parallel,

for the purposes of determining whether Colorado River abstention applies, if

they involve the same parties and the same issues.” Id. at 540 (alterations and

quotations marks omitted). The issues in this federal action clearly overlap the

issues in the Consolidation Actions. LAC simply seeks in this case to have the

Mennonite issues central to its ownership claim heard earlier than the state

court rules will allow. Also, the parties in the Consolidated Actions are nearly

identical to the federal suit. All of the parties in this case have been named in

one or more of the state court suits, either in the Consolidated Actions or the

suits to annul the 1914 and 1929 tax sales or both, except for the St. Bernard

Parish Clerk of Court, Assessor and Sheriff. This is sufficient for the state and

federal court proceedings to be parallel. 

Under Colorado River, a district court may abstain from a case only under

“exceptional circumstances.” Colo. River Water Conservation Dist. v. United

States, 424 U.S. 800, 813 (U.S. 1976). In deciding whether “exceptional

circumstances” exist, the Supreme Court has identified six nonexclusive factors

to consider:

(1) assumption by either court of jurisdiction over a res, 

(2) relative inconvenience of the forums, 

(3) avoidance of piecemeal litigation, 

(4) the order in which jurisdiction was obtained by the concurrent

forums, 

(5) to what extent federal law provides the rules of decision on the

merits, and 
No. 08-30361

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(6) the adequacy of the state proceedings in protecting the rights of

the party invoking federal jurisdiction

Diamond Offshore, 302 F.3d at 540, n. 6 (quoting Black Sea Inv. Ltd. v. United

Heritage Corp., 204 F.3d 647, 650 (5th Cir. 2000)). The factors are not applied

mechanically, but must be carefully balanced “with the balance heavily weighted

in favor of the exercise of jurisdiction.” Stewart v. W. Heritage Ins. Co., 438 F.3d

488, 492 (5th Cir. 2006)(quoting Moses H. Cone Mem’l. Hosp. v. Mercury Const.

Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 16 (1983)). 

While acknowledging that abstention is a “rare creature and must meet

certain criteria,” the district court considered the above factors and exercised its

discretion to abstain. The district court noted that the federal court had not

assumed jurisdiction over any res, whereas the oil and gas royalties from the

property in question have been deposited into the registry of the State Trial

Court. It concluded that the second factor is neutral because there was no

inconvenience to the parties to try the case in the State Trial Court in St.

Bernard Parish rather than in federal court in New Orleans, Louisiana. The

district court found that the third and fourth factors weighed strongly in favor

of abstention, namely, the desire to avoid piecemeal litigation and the order in

which jurisdiction was obtained. The court noted that this case had been

litigated in state court since early 2001 and had been the subject of several

appeals on the subject of procedure. It also recognized that the State Trial Court

was not refusing to hear the Mennonite issue the plaintiffs were raising in the

federal suit; it had simply decided to try possession first to establish the burdens

of proof under state procedural law. On the related fifth and sixth issues,

although federal law is implicated in the Mennonite issue, the district court

noted that the State Trial Court was not denying LAC the right to raise the

constitutional claim, rather it had stated the methodology and order by which

the Mennonite issue would be decided with respect to the interrelated issue of
No. 08-30361

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possession and ownership in the state case. Accordingly, the district court

found that the state court proceedings were adequate to protect the federal

plaintiff’s rights. 

We agree with the district court’s analysis of the Colorado River factors.

In particular these parallel cases create a danger of piecemeal litigation. The

state court will eventually reach the Mennonite issue that LAC seeks to be heard

in the federal district court. Resolution of the Mennonite issue by the federal

district court will not decide or significantly reduce the litigation in the State

Trial Court, which would still be required to try possession and ownership. The

State Trial Court’s own procedural rules dictate the order in which the case will

be tried, a methodology which LAC has repeatedly and unsuccessfully

challenged in the Louisiana courts. The district court did not abuse its

discretion by declining to hear the single issue in this case and upset the State

Trial Court’s determined procedure. 

IV. 

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court staying the

federal court case in favor of the cases proceeding in the State Trial Court is

affirmed. 

AFFIRMED.