NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_______________ 

No. 14-1506

_______________

MOHAMED KHALIL; SANDRA DAMRAH,

 Appellants

v.

NEW JERSEY DIVISION OF CHILD PROTECTION AND PERMANENCY, 

f/k/a DIVISION OF YOUTH AND FAMILY SEVICES; 

KARA P. WOOD, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS DIRECTOR OF DCP&P; 

ALLISON BLAKE, IN HER OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS 

THE COMMISSIONER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES;

KEVIN BELLI, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

GILLIAN BATTS, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

JANET DASILVA, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

ESPERANZA VARGAS, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

ARLENE COHN, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

EZEADI KELECHI, IN HIS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

ALICE SCHAEFFER-NADELMAN, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

GERALDINE LIVENGOOD, IN HER INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY; 

FAMILY INTERVENTION SERVICES; JOHN DOES 1-15

_______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. Civil No. 2-12-cv-07284)

District Judge: Honorable Katharine S. Hayden

____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

December 8, 2014

BEFORE: VANASKIE, COWEN and VAN ANTWERPEN, Circuit Judges
2

(Filed: February 4, 2015)

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OPINION*

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COWEN, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs-appellants, Mohamed Khalil and Sandra Damrah (together, 

“Appellants”), alleging federal and state law claims, filed suit in federal court against the 

New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency (the “DCP&P”), certain of its 

associates and employees, and other persons involved in the care and/or oversight of 

Khalil’s son (collectively, “Appellees”). Appellants seek review of the District Court’s 

order dismissing their complaint. Because we conclude that dismissal was appropriate, 

we will affirm.

I.

Because we write solely for the parties, we will only set forth the facts necessary to 

inform our analysis. 

This case stems from two events. The first involved family court proceedings 

regarding Khalil’s parental rights over his child, A.R.K, and does not appear to implicate

Damrah’s rights. Due to an incident that occurred at the home of A.R.K.’s biological 

mother, the police were called and Khalil arrested. Following his arrest, the DCP&P 

______________ 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
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removed A.R.K. from his biological mother’s home, placed him in a foster home, and

restricted Khalil’s visitation with him. Despite Khalil’s alleged compliance with all 

requirements placed on him, DCP&P successfully sought termination of his parental 

rights. Khalil alleges that the termination of his parental rights was the culmination of 

false statements made by Appellees throughout the family court proceedings.

The second event involved an encounter with defendant/appellee Ezeadi Kelechi, 

a DCP&P child protective services worker. Asserting various federal and state law 

claims, Appellants allege that while the two of them were dining at a public restaurant, 

Kelechi harassed and threatened them, shouting loudly that Khalil is a terrorist and that 

DCP&P has custody of his son and will never give him back. Kelechi also reportedly 

knew how much Khalil had paid in attorney’s fees, mocked his religious and ethnic roots, 

and questioned whether Damrah was born in the United States because she didn’t “look 

like it.” (Compl. ¶¶ 107-11.) Appellants allege that this incident establishes a conspiracy 

between Kelechi and Appellees to violate Khalil’s civil rights. 

II.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise plenary review 

over a district court’s order dismissing a complaint and its application of the RookerFeldman doctrine. Whiteford v. Reed, 155 F.3d 671, 672 (3d Cir. 1998). When 

considering a motion to dismiss a complaint, a court must view the factual allegations as 

true and dismiss only if the complaint does not allege “enough facts to state a claim to 

relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). 
4

A. Application of the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine 

The federal courts “possess only that power authorized by Constitution and statute, 

which is not to be expanded by judicial decree.” Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of 

America, 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994) (citations omitted). “It is to be presumed that a cause 

lies outside [the federal courts’] limited jurisdiction and the burden of establishing the 

contrary rests upon the party asserting jurisdiction.” Id. (citations omitted). Pursuant to 

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal courts lack jurisdiction over suits that are 

essentially appeals from state-court judgments. Great Western Mining & Mineral Co. v. 

Fox Rothschild LLP, 615 F.3d 159, 165 (3d Cir. 2010). It therefore falls to Khalil, as the 

party asserting jurisdiction, to demonstrate that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not 

apply to his claims arising out of the family court proceedings. 

The doctrine requires that “(1) the federal plaintiff lost in state court; (2) the 

plaintiff ‘complain[s] of injuries caused by [the] state-court judgments’; (3) those 

judgments were rendered before the federal suit was filed; and (4) the plaintiff is inviting 

the district court to review and reject the state judgments.” Id. at 166 (quoting Exxon 

Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005)). We have counseled 

that “[t]he second and fourth requirements are the key to determining whether a federal 

suit presents an independent, non-barred claim.” Id.

Here, the first and third requirements are clearly met. Khalil lost in state court, and 

the family court’s decision to terminate his parental rights was rendered prior to initiation 

of his federal suit. We therefore focus our inquiry on the second and fourth prongs. We 
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have noted that these requirements are “closely related.” Id. at 168. Khalil argues that he 

does not complain of injuries caused by the state-court judgment, but rather of injuries 

caused by Appellees. He similarly asserts that he does not ask us to review and reject the 

state-court judgment because he invites review only of Appellees’ conduct in the statecourt proceedings. We find these arguments unpersuasive.

That Khalil is really challenging the state court’s decision to terminate his parental 

rights is evidenced by the allegations in the complaint. He complains that “[i]t was the 

actions of the Defendants . . . that resulted in the termination of his parental rights,” and 

contends that Appellees committed fraud upon the court “in terminating [his] parental 

rights.” (Compl. ¶¶ 46, 117.) In fact, the termination of Khalil’s parental rights was the 

result of a state-court order. Accordingly, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies, and the 

District Court correctly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the majority of 

Khalil’s claims against Appellees. 

This conclusion is supported by our opinion in Great Western Mining & Mineral 

Co. v. Fox Rothschild LLP. In Great Western, we declined to apply the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine to a lawsuit brought by the plaintiff-appellant alleging “an extensive conspiracy 

among [a defendant], numerous attorneys, and various state-court judges to engineer [the 

plaintiff’s] defeat in state court.” 615 F.3d at 171. While acknowledging that the suit 

attacked state-court judgments, we concluded that we had jurisdiction over the claims 

because the “people involved in the decision violated . . . [the plaintiff’s] right to an 

impartial forum.” Id. at 172. In contrast here, Khalil does not allege any conspiracy on 
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the part of the family court or state court judges who ultimately made the decisions 

affecting his parental rights. Indeed, although Khalil alleges that Livengood, a New 

Jersey deputy attorney general, falsely represented that Khalil’s stepson committed 

suicide while in his custody, he has not alleged any “agreement [between Appellees and 

the state court decisionmakers] to reach a predetermined outcome in [his] case,” such that 

he has pled a constitutional claim independent of any harm he suffered as a result of the 

state-court decisions. Id. 

Nor can Khalil find refuge in our decision in Ernst v. Child and Youth Servs. of 

Chester County, 108 F.3d 486 (3d Cir. 1997). In Ernst, we concluded that the RookerFeldman doctrine did not apply to a plaintiff’s claims of bias against employees of the 

Chester County Children & Youth Services (“CYS”), who the plaintiff alleged harbored 

improper motives for seeking an adjudication of dependency regarding her 

granddaughter. Id. at 492. In so holding, we noted that a state court’s decision regarding 

dependency is not based on any determination that the CYS employees were pursuing the 

determination for an improper motive. Id. Here, however, Khalil directly attacks the 

state-court judgment, claiming that it erroneously terminated his parental rights as the 

result of allegedly false accusations, concealed facts, and wholly fabricated statements on 

the part of the DCP&P employees. It is therefore impossible for us to grant Khalil relief 

without concluding that the foundation for the state court’s opinion was incorrect, thereby 

rejecting the state court’s judgment regarding his parental rights. This result is barred by 

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. 
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Because, however, Appellants’ claims stemming from their encounter with Kelechi 

arise from conduct that occurred after the state-court judgment was final, we consider 

them separately. 

B. Remaining Federal Claims Against Kelechi

The District Court dismissed the remainder of Appellants’ substantive 

constitutional claims, concluding that they failed to plead any plausible claim that their 

constitutional rights had been violated. Appellants have not appealed those 

determinations. Rather, they challenge only the District Court’s dismissal of their claims 

of constitutional conspiracy pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, and 1986. Each of 

these statutes requires, at base, an agreement to deprive an individual of some legal right. 

The District Court concluded that dismissal of these claims was appropriate because the 

“bare allegation of an agreement is insufficient to sustain a conspiracy claim.” Khalil v. 

NJ Div. of Child Protection and Permanency, Civ. No. 12-7284 (KSH), 2014 WL 

356604, at *11 (D.N.J. Jan. 31, 2014). We agree.

Appellants’ sole basis for the existence of a conspiracy is their allegation that 

Kelechi had knowledge of information that he otherwise should not have known. They 

surmise from this fact that he must have gained this information as part of a conspiracy 

with the other Appellees to deprive Khalil his parental rights. Without more, such pure 

conjecture is simply insufficient to state a plausible claim. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 545 

(“Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative 

level”); see also Young v. Kann, 926 F.2d 1396, 1405 n.16 (3d Cir. 1991) (affirming the 
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dismissal of a claim as legally frivolous because it was based “merely upon [the 

plaintiff’s] own suspicion and speculation.”). 

III.

In light of the foregoing, the order of the District Court entered on January 31, 

2014, will be affirmed.