United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted June 30, 2020*

Decided July 2, 2020

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

AMY C. BARRETT, Circuit Judge

No. 19-2402

AUGUSTYN KASPRZYK,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

AXIOM FINANCIAL LLC, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division.

No. 17-cv-8523

Charles R. Norgle,

Judge.

O R D E R

Augustyn Kasprzyk lost his home in an Illinois foreclosure action. In this 

federal suit, he asserts that over twenty lending institutions conspired to defraud him

by foreclosing on his home, in violation of federal and state laws. The district court 

dismissed his case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, ruling that the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine barred all of his claims. See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman,

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 19-2402 Page 2

460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923). On appeal Kasprzyk 

insists that the doctrine does not apply to his claims because he is seeking monetary 

damages for out-of-court actions by the defendants. But he alleges no injury distinct

from the foreclosure judgment, so we affirm.

In 2006 Kasprzyk obtained a mortgage loan for his home in Chicago. He

defaulted shortly afterward but managed to stave off the first round of foreclosure 

proceedings against him. Further proceedings, however, were initiated by the 

mortgage’s assignees, who refused Kasprzyk’s offer to repurchase his home at a lower 

price. Judgment was entered against him in the state trial court in 2017, and his home 

was later sold in a foreclosure sale.

Kasprzyk then filed this wide-ranging suit for damages against twenty-two 

lending institutions. He said that he had uncovered new evidence of fraud that was 

unavailable to him at the time of the state court’s proceedings—specifically, new reports 

about rampant fraud in the mortgage securitization industry that helped trigger the 

2008 financial collapse. In his view, these reports show that the defendants conspired to 

foreclose on his home by issuing him a loan using fraudulent documents and 

misrepresenting the status of his mortgage assignments. His complaint alleged 

violations of several federal statutes: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt 

Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968; the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, 

12 U.S.C. §§ 2601–2617; and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692–

1962p. He also brought claims under the Illinois Consumer and Deceptive Business 

Practices Act, 810 ILCS 505/1–505/12, and state tort law for intentional infliction of 

emotional distress, trespass, and civil conspiracy.

The district court dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under 

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. It explained that Kasprzyk’s claims—which involved 

events connected to the foreclosure action (e.g., allegedly fraudulent acts related to the 

issuance of his mortgage loan and later attempts to collect on it)—were “inextricably 

intertwined” with the state-court judgment and therefore barred.

On appeal Kasprzyk contends that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply to 

his claims because he seeks to challenge the defendants’ conspiracy to defraud him of 

his home, not the state-court foreclosure judgment. He relies on our decision in Johnson 

v. Pushpin Holdings, LLC, 748 F.3d 769, 773 (7th Cir. 2014), in which we held that the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not bar a suit seeking damages for fraud that led to a state 

court’s judgment adverse to the plaintiff. Johnson, 748 F.3d at 773. 
No. 19-2402 Page 3

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents lower federal courts from hearing “cases 

brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments.” 

Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005).1 That doctrine also 

extends to federal claims that do not on their face require review of a state court’s 

decision if those claims are closely enough related to a state court’s judgment. Mains v. 

Citibank, N.A., 852 F.3d 669, 675 (7th Cir. 2017). If, however, the claim asserts an injury 

independent of the state court’s judgment that the state court did not remedy, RookerFeldman does not apply.

Based on these principles, Kasprzyk’s claims are barred by Rooker-Feldman. His 

complaint seeks to recover on a theory that the defendants made false statements 

during state litigation, but “[t]hat is precisely what Rooker-Feldman prohibits.” Id. at 676; 

see also Harold v. Steel, 773 F.3d 884, 885 (7th Cir. 2014). His claim that the defendants 

conspired under RICO to mislead the state court about the validity of his loan and the 

status of his mortgage assignments is barred because “’[n]o injury occurred until the 

state court ruled against [him].’” Mains, 852 F.3d at 677 (quoting Harold, 773 F.3d at 885). 

As in Mains, a state court already had established that those documents and 

assignments were valid, “and a lower federal court is not empowered to second-guess 

that decision.” Id. at 677. For the same reason, we cannot reach his additional claim that 

the defendants violated the FDCPA by attempting to collect on his loan, or that they 

violated RESPA by refusing to accept his offer to repurchase his home at a lower price 

while the foreclosure proceedings were pending. Id. at 678. For him to prevail on any of 

his federal claims, a district court would need to declare that the foreclosure judgment 

was invalid or, contrary to that judgment, find that the documents on which it relied 

were fraudulent. See id.

Further, Kasprzyk’s reliance on Johnson is misplaced. In that case we held that 

Rooker-Feldman does not bar a federal class-action suit alleging fraud that caused a state 

court’s adverse judgment, but that suit concerned independently unlawful conduct (a 

debt-collecting agency’s out-of-court misrepresentations about its licensing status) that 

went unrectified in the state court. The plaintiffs’ suit sought not to disturb the state 

1 We note that the proper standard under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is not

whether the plaintiff’s claims are somehow “inextricably intertwined” with the state 

court’s judgment, but whether the plaintiff, having lost in state court, is seeking review 

of a state court’s judgment that injured him. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic 

Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2006); Milchstein v. Chisholm, 880 F.3d 895, 898 

(7th Cir. 2018); Richardson v. Koch Law Firm, P.C., 768 F.3d 732, 734 (7th Cir. 2014).
No. 19-2402 Page 4

court’s judgment, but to obtain damages for the defendant’s fraudulent

misrepresentations that occurred outside the court’s proceedings. Johnson, 748 F.3d at 

773. As we elaborated in Iqbal v. Patel, 780 F.3d 728, 730 (7th Cir. 2015), “[I]f a plaintiff 

contends that out-of-court events have caused the injury that the state judiciary failed to 

detect and repair, then a district court has jurisdiction—but only to the extent of dealing 

with that injury.” Kasprzyk’s federal complaint, by contrast, seeks relief for statements 

relied upon by the state court that he believes were fraudulent. Kasprzyk’s federal 

claims were therefore properly dismissed. 

Because the district court properly dismissed Kasprzyk’s federal law claims, it 

lacked supplemental jurisdiction to address his state law claims. Mains, 679 F.3d at 679. 

Finally, Kasprzyk asserts that the district court erred by dismissing his claims

with prejudice. But he misapprehends the court’s ruling. The court here dismissed his 

claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, which is a dismissal without prejudice. 

See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(b)(1); Lewert v. P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Inc., 819 F.3d 963, 970 

(7th Cir. 2016).

AFFIRMED