United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 21-1382

BINYAMIN I. EFREOM; MARILYN C. DISTEFANO; SUSAN L. HARTNETT; 

ADRIENNE R. DIMEO; MARY G. KENNEDY; CYNTHIA J. RONDEAU; MARY 

O'CONNELL MCKENNA; TIMOTHY H. MURPHY; DENNIS F. ZIROLI; ANNMARIE 

BOLVIN; WILLIAM P. BERUBE; JOSEPH F. CLIFFORD, III; ANTONETTA R. 

MELLO; MAUREEN RITA VAVOLOTIS; WILLIAM BLAIR; PATRICIA E. 

GIAMMARCO; BARBARA A. MOUSSALLI; SANDRA A. CURRAN; KATHLYNE E. 

WALSH; WILLIAM H. FERGUSON; CAROL SCHNEIDER; JOANNE A. 

MATISEWSKI; LAURIE A. SCIALABBA; JEAN PETISCE-LYNCH; ANTHONY T. 

BAGAGLIA; JOANN C. LOMBARDI; ANTHONY J. RICCI; JAMES E. BARDEN; 

NANCY A. LEMME; MARY F SHERLOCK; PAMELA J. DELVECCHIO; JANET 

KELLER; DEAN L. LEES; ROBERT M. PESATURO, JR.; JANICE M. 

COLERICK; JAMES H. COX; KATHLEEN A. CRESCENZO; SANDRA L. 

MCCULLOUGH; MICHAEL N. SENERCHIA; KAREN M. TANNER; NORMA JEAN 

PALAZZO; DAVID GOODMAN; ROBERT J. DIMAIO; FRANCESCA BEDELL; 

JAMES BEDELL; MARGARET HARRIS; MARY KATHERINE O'NEILL; BRIAN 

KENNEDY,

Plaintiffs, Appellants,

GREGORY MARCELLO,

Plaintiff,

v.

DANIEL J. MCKEE, in his capacity as Governor of the State of 

Rhode Island; EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM OF RHODE ISLAND, by 

and through FRANK J. KARPINSKI, its Executive Director; SETH 

MAGAZINER, in his capacity as Chairperson of the Retirement 

Board,

Defendants, Appellees.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND

[Hon. William E. Smith, U.S. District Judge]
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Before

Barron, Chief Judge,

Selya and Gelpí, Circuit Judges.

George J. West for appellants.

Nicole J. Benjamin, with whom John A. Tarantino, Adler 

Pollock & Sheehan P.C., Michael W. Field, and Rhode Island Office 

of Attorney General, for appellees Daniel J. McKee, in his capacity 

as Governor of the State of Rhode Island, Seth Magaziner, in his 

capacity as Chairperson of the Retirement Board, and the Employees' 

Retirement System of Rhode Island.

August 18, 2022
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GELPÍ, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from an order 

and judgment granting defendant-appellees' motion to dismiss 

appellants' complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Appellants are forty-nine members of a 

class of retired Rhode Island public employees impacted by changes 

to the state's retirement benefits scheme, as initially 

implemented by the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011

("RIRSA"), and subsequently modified by legislation in 2015 (the 

"2015 Amendments"). The latter was enacted pursuant to a classaction settlement agreement reached following litigation in state 

court, in which each appellant was a party. Unsated by what they 

consider to be meager relief, appellants now seek redress in 

federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging various 

constitutional violations in the changes to Rhode Island's 

retirement benefits scheme (Counts I-IV) and in the class-action 

settlement agreement itself (Count V). However, in attempting to

effectively appeal a final judgment of the Rhode Island Supreme 

Court, appellants run afoul of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine with 

respect to Counts I-IV. See Rooker v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 

(1923); D.C. Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). Count 

V, meanwhile, fails due to a lack of standing. As such, we affirm 

the district court's dismissal for want of subject-matter 

jurisdiction.
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I. Background1

Facing a steep budget deficit in the wake of the 2008 

financial crisis, Rhode Island enacted RIRSA in 2011 to shore up 

its then-precarious pension system, the Employees' Retirement 

System of Rhode Island ("ERSRI"). 2011 R.I. Pub. Laws ch. 408-

409; see also id. ch. 408 § 1(a)(1) (finding that "[t]he State of 

Rhode Island has one of the lowest funded and most vulnerable 

statewide pension systems in the country"); Cranston Firefighters, 

IAFF Loc. 1363 v. Raimondo, 880 F.3d 44, 46 (1st Cir. 2018) ("By 

2011, Rhode Island's public employee pension system itself faced 

dire underfunding, which the state legislature labeled a 'fiscal 

peril' that threatened the ability of Rhode Island's 

municipalities to provide basic public services."). RIRSA, which 

followed previous pension reforms enacted in 2009 and 2010, altered 

in various ways the retirement benefits to which public employees

were entitled, including by reducing the amount and availability 

of cost-of-living adjustment ("COLA") payments to retirees. See

R.I. Pub. Emps. Retiree Coal. v. Raimondo (RIPERC I), No. PC 2015-

1468, 2015 WL 1872189, at *1, *6 (R.I. Super. Ct. Apr. 16, 2015).

The Rhode Island Superior Court summarized these changes as 

follows:

For state employees who were eligible to retire but 

1 The parties do not dispute the relevant facts, as outlined 

in the district court's opinion and the various state court 

decisions relating to this case. 
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had not yet retired as of July 1, 2012, RIRSA 

changed the formula by which their retirement 

allowance would be calculated. For correctional 

officers, RIRSA also altered the rules governing 

retirement eligibility and changed the formula for 

their retirement allowance. For teachers who were 

not eligible to retire as of July 1, 2012, RIRSA 

increased the retirement age, changed the formula 

for calculating the retirement allowance, and 

changed the employee contribution rate. RIRSA also 

made changes to the retirement benefits for 

municipal employees who were members of the 

Municipal Employees Retirement System (MERS), which 

is also part of the ERSRI. For all members 

receiving retirement benefits under the ERSRI, 

including those employees who had already retired 

as of June 30, 2012, RIRSA reduced the amount of 

the annual COLA benefit, limited the COLA to apply 

only to the first $25,000 of a member's retirement 

benefit, and suspended the annual COLA making it 

payable once every five years until the various 

pension plans were at least 80% funded. In 

addition, RIRSA changed the structure of the 

retirement program from a traditional defined 

benefit plan to a "hybrid plan" with a smaller 

defined benefit plan and a supplemental defined 

contribution plan. For active Police and 

Firefighters, RIRSA made a number of other changes 

including increasing the minimum service 

requirement and adding a minimum retirement age of 

55 years.

R.I. Pub. Emps. Retiree Coal. v. Raimondo (RIPERC II), No. PC 2015-

1468, 2015 WL 3648161, at *2 (R.I. Super. Ct. June 9, 2015); see 

also Cranston Firefighters, 880 F.3d at 45-46 (outlining the 

history of the Rhode Island pension system and summarizing RIRSA). 

The upshot was a "severe diminution" in the anticipated retirement 

benefits for affected public employees. Clifford v. Raimondo, 184 

A.3d 673, 679 (R.I. 2018). 

Litigation promptly ensued in state court. Unions, 
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retiree associations, and individuals filed lawsuits alleging that

RIRSA violated the contract, takings, and due process clauses of 

the Rhode Island Constitution. See RIPERC I, 2015 WL 1872189, at 

*1 (cataloguing the numerous challenges to RIRSA). Appellants, 

alongside some 150 other retired public employees, were plaintiffs

in one such case ("the Clifford action") filed in Rhode Island 

Superior Court in 2014, which focused on RIRSA's cuts to retirees'

COLAs. Clifford v. Chafee, No. KC-2014-345 (R.I. Super. Ct. Jan. 

14, 2015). The various pension cases, including the Clifford

action and previous suits challenging the 2009 and 2010 pension 

reforms on identical constitutional grounds, were eventually 

consolidated for trial.

After extensive discovery, and with the assistance of a 

special master, most of the parties to the consolidated action 

reached a proposed settlement agreement.2 RIPERC I, 2015 WL 

1872189, at *2. In April 2015, a class-action lawsuit was filed

for settlement purposes, in which the Superior Court certified the 

following plaintiff class: 

All persons (and/or their beneficiaries) who, on or 

before July 1, 2015, are receiving benefits or are 

participating in the State Employees, Teachers, or 

2 A few parties, representing a group of active police 

officers and the police and fire personnel of the City of Cranston, 

did not agree to the proposal. Consequently, these parties -- who 

had previously filed three pension lawsuits that were joined in 

the consolidated action -- were not included in the subsequent 

class-action lawsuit and settlement. See RIPERC I, 2015 WL 

1872189, at *2. 
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Municipal Employees' retirement systems 

administered by ERSRI and all future employees, 

excepting only those individuals who on July 1, 

2015, are participating in a municipal retirement 

system administered by ERSRI for municipal police 

officers in any municipality and/or for fire 

personnel of the City of Cranston.

Id. at *10. The Superior Court also certified a plaintiff subclass 

comprising "[a]ll retired members and beneficiaries who retired on 

or before June 30, 2015, who are receiving a retirement benefit 

under ERS [Teachers and State Employees Retirement System] or any 

MERS unit," designating class representatives and appointing class 

counsel for the same. Id. The plaintiffs in the Clifford action, 

and appellants here, were all members of that retiree subclass. 

Support for the proposed settlement was not unanimous among the 

individual class members, and appellants here were among those who 

opposed the proposal Nonetheless, because the court certified the 

class under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Rhode Island Superior Court Rules 

of Civil Procedure, objecting members were not permitted to opt 

out of the class.3 Id.; cf. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 

U.S. 338, 362 (2011) (noting that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

23(b)(2) likewise "provides no opportunity for . . . class members 

3 In relevant part, Rule 23(b)(2) provides that a class action 

may be maintained if, in addition to meeting the standard Rule 

23(a) prerequisites of numerosity, commonality, typicality and 

adequacy of representation, "[t]he party opposing the class has 

acted or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the 

class, thereby making appropriate final injunctive relief or 

corresponding declaratory relief with respect to the class as a 

whole . . . ." R.I. Super Ct. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2).
- 8 -

to opt out"). In the same decision, the Superior Court

preliminarily approved the settlement as fair, adequate, and 

reasonable. RIPERC I, 2015 WL 1872189, at *10.

The proposed settlement was conditioned upon the passage 

of the 2015 Amendments, which would entitle pensioners and public 

employees to certain greater benefits than provided under RIRSA. 

The Superior Court summarized the relevant provisions of the 2015 

Amendments:

• A one-time COLA payment of 2% applied to the 

first $25,000 of the pension benefit and that 

amount added to the base benefit will be paid to 

retirees (or their beneficiaries) who 

participate in a COLA program and who retired on 

or before June 30, 2012 as soon as 

administratively reasonable following the 

passage of the legislation based on the amount 

of benefit payable on the effective date of the 

legislation.

• For funds that are not already funded, the 

settlement shortens the time intervals between 

suspended COLA payments from once every five 

years to once every four years. The settlement 

also improves the COLA limitation for current 

retirees whose COLA is suspended. The settlement 

also requires a more favorable indexing of COLA 

Cap for all current and future retirees. The 

settlement also changes the COLA calculation to 

one more likely to produce a positive number and 

dictates that the COLA formula will be calculated 

annually, regardless of funding level, and when 

paid, the COLA will be compounded for all 

receiving a COLA. 

• Current retirees (or their beneficiaries) who 

have or will have retired on or before June 30, 

2015 will receive two payments: (1) a one-time 

$500.00 stipend (not added to the COLA base) 

within sixty days of the enactment of the 

legislation approving the terms of the 

settlement and (2) a one-time $500 stipend 
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payable one year later.

• For State Workers, Teachers, and General MERS, 

the settlement (1) adds another calculation to 

reduce the minimum retirement age; (2) improves 

the available accrual rate for employees with 

twenty years or more of service as of June 30, 

2012; (3) requires increased contributions by 

the employer to the Defined Contribution Plan 

for employees with ten or more years of service 

(but less than twenty) as of June 30, 2012; (4) 

waives the administration fee for any employees 

participating in the Defined Contribution Plan 

who make $35,000 or less; and (5) adds another 

calculation designed to limit the impact of the 

"anti-spiking" rule imposed by the RIRSA on parttime employees. 

• For MERS Firefighters (excluding Cranston 

Firefighters), the settlement (1) lowers the age 

and service requirements for retirement; (2) 

increases the accrual rate for Firefighters who 

retire at age fifty-seven with thirty years of 

service.

• For State Correctional Officers, the settlement 

increases the accrual rate for correctional 

officers with fewer than twenty-five years of 

service as of June 30, 2012. 

• The settlement reduces the impact of an early 

retirement.

• The settlement allows Municipalities to "reamortize"; that is, partially refinance, to be 

able to pay for the increased cost of the 

settlement.

• Otherwise, the terms of the RIRSA remain the 

same.

Id. at *3-4. The settlement agreement also included covenants 

wherein the parties agreed not to "directly or indirectly, propose, 

support, encourage or advocate for any legislative action 

concerning or relating to retirement benefits other than the 

adoption of the [2015 Amendments]," nor to "directly or indirectly, 

propose, support, encourage or advocate that any other person, 
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firm or entity do anything or refrain from doing something that a 

party to [the] Settlement Agreement would be prohibited from doing 

or refraining from doing hereunder." 

In May 2015, the Superior Court held a five-day fairness 

hearing regarding the proposed settlement. The hearing was 

vigorously contested. Approximately 400 class members provided 

written objections to the settlement in advance of the hearing, 

and 35 addressed the court at the hearing to articulate their 

concerns. RIPERC II, 2015 WL 3648161, at *6, *12 n.16. In June 

2015, the court approved the settlement as fair, reasonable, and 

adequate, rejecting the objecting class members' contentions that 

the settlement was procedurally or substantively deficient. Id.

at *31. Shortly thereafter, Rhode Island passed the 2015 

Amendments, amending RIRSA in accordance with the settlement 

agreement. See 2015 R.I. Pub. Laws ch. 141, § 21. The Superior 

Court subsequently entered judgment on the class-action lawsuit, 

determining:

This Judgment is final and shall be binding on all 

parties and all class members in the abovereferenced class action case for settlement 

purposes. Additionally, all class members are 

forever and completely barred from ever asserting 

any claims or causes of action that were alleged or 

brought or that could have been alleged or brought 

with respect to the various challenges to the Rhode 

Island pension statutes made and asserted in the 

above-captioned action and in each of the following 

matters, C.A. Nos. 10-2859, 12-3166, 12-3167, 12-

3168, 12-3579, KC 14-0345 [i.e., the Clifford

action], as the Court has previously found, 
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determined and ruled that the terms and conditions 

of the Settlement Agreement, as now implemented and 

made effective by the Pension Legislation, are fair 

and reasonable.

R.I. Pub. Emps. Retiree Coal. v. Raimondo (RIPERC III), No. PC

2015-1468, 2015 WL 4501873, at *1 (R.I. Super. Ct. July 8, 2015), 

aff'd, Clifford, 184 A.3d at 695. Concurrently, the court 

dismissed the Clifford action with prejudice. Clifford v. 

Raimondo, No. KC 14-0345 (R.I. Super. Ct. July 8, 2015). A group 

of class members (including all appellants here) appealed both 

judgments, contesting the propriety of the class certification and 

the procedural and substantive fairness of the settlement. In 

2018, the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court's 

decisions, finding that the trial justice "did not abuse her 

discretion in certifying the class" and in "concluding that the 

settlement was fair, reasonable, and adequate." Clifford, 184 

A.3d at 690, 695. 

Undeterred, appellants in 2020 sued the Governor of 

Rhode Island, ERSRI, and the Chairperson of the Retirement Board 

in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging various 

violations of the Federal Constitution in connection with the 

changes to Rhode Island's retirement benefits scheme. In the first 

four Counts of their Complaint, appellants -- purporting to 

challenge the 2015 Amendments rather than RIRSA -- asserted that 

the reduction of their pension benefits violated the Due Process 
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Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Contract Clause 

of Article I, Section 10, and the Takings Clause of the Fifth 

Amendment. 4 Appellants also alleged, in Count V, that the 

covenants concerning advocacy for legislative action in the 

settlement agreement abridged their right to petition in violation 

of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Defendants moved to 

dismiss for failure to state a claim. The district court granted 

the motion, holding that appellants' claims were barred, inter 

alia, by res judicata, a lack of Article III standing, and the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Efreom v. McKee, No. 20-122, 2021 WL 

1424974, at *4-11 (D.R.I. Apr. 15, 2021). Appellants timely 

appealed. 

II. Discussion

1. Standard of Review

"We review a dismissal for lack of subject matter 

jurisdiction de novo, 'accepting the plaintiffs' well-pleaded 

facts as true and indulging all reasonable inferences to their 

behoof.'" Davison v. Gov't of P.R-P.R. Firefighters Corps, 471 

4 As the district court noted, although appellants mistakenly 

referenced Article V, Section 10 of the Constitution in support of 

their Contract Clause claim, they "clearly intended to refer to 

Article I, Section 10." Efreom v. McKee, No. 20-122, 2021 WL 

1424974, at *3 n.6 (D.R.I. Apr. 15, 2021). Further, because

appellants' untitled Count IV "does not assert a separate cause of 

action" but "instead provides additional arguments to support 

Counts I, II, and III," we follow the district court in considering

this claim together with the Contract, Takings, and Due Process 

Clause claims. Id. at *3. 
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F.3d 220, 222 (1st Cir. 2006) (quoting McCloskey v. Mueller, 446 

F.3d 262, 266 (1st Cir. 2006)). 

2. Appellants' Due Process, Takings, and Contracts Clause Claims

Are Barred by the Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

Appellees contend, and the district court determined,

that appellants lack Article III standing with respect to Counts 

I-IV. See Efreom, 2021 WL 1424974, at *8-9. As such, before we 

consider any merits issues, we must begin by addressing the 

"threshold matter" of whether we have federal subject-matter 

jurisdiction over these claims. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for a 

Better Env't, 523 U.S. 83, 94-95 (1998). Because we conclude under 

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine that we lack jurisdiction, our inquiry 

with respect to Counts I-IV ends here.5

Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we lack jurisdiction 

to consider "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 

5 "The Rooker-Feldman doctrine . . . implicates statutory, 

not Article III, jurisdiction." Sinapi v. R.I. Bd. of Bar Exam'rs, 

910 F.3d 544, 550 (1st Cir. 2018) (emphasis omitted). Because we 

lack the former, we need not address the latter. See Lance v. 

Coffman, 549 U.S. 437, 439 & n* (2007) (per curiam) (explaining 

that federal courts may bypass Article III standing inquiry to 

determine jurisdiction under Rooker-Feldman); Am. Petroleum Inst.

v. Env't Prot. Agency, 862 F.3d 50, 75 (D.C. Cir. 2017) ("[B]ecause 

we dispose of [petitioners'] challenge by concluding that we are 

without statutory jurisdiction, we have no reason to address [the]

contention that [petitioners] lack Article III standing."),

decision modified on reh'g, 883 F.3d 918 (D.C. Cir. 2018).
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review and rejection of those judgments." Exxon Mobil Corp. v. 

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

prevents losing litigants "from seeking what in substance would be 

appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district 

court, based on the losing party's claim that the state judgment 

itself violates the loser's federal rights," as only the Supreme 

Court has jurisdiction to review the decision of a state court in 

civil litigation. Id. at 287 (quoting Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 

U.S. 997, 1005–06 (1994)); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) (providing

that "[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court 

of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by 

the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari," rather than by inferior 

courts). 

It is just this type of impermissible appellate review 

that appellants seek in federal court. Dissatisfied with the 

outcome of the state-court litigation, appellants ask us to set 

aside the Rhode Island state courts' approval of the RIPERC classaction settlement, in an action commenced over two years after the 

Rhode Island Supreme Court rendered its final decision on the 

matter. It is undisputed that appellants (and defendants) were 

all parties to the original Clifford action, the RIPERC class, and 

the final appeal to the Rhode Island Supreme Court in Clifford v. 
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Raimondo.6 As such, appellants are "state-court losers" seeking, 

in effect, to review and reverse "state-court judgments rendered 

before the district court proceedings commenced." Exxon Mobil 

Corp., 544 U.S. at 284. 

Appellants nonetheless attempt to escape the vise of 

Rooker-Feldman by disputing, essentially, that their alleged 

injuries were actually "caused by" the state-court judgments. Id. 

To this end, appellants emphasize that they primarily contest the 

constitutionality of the 2015 Amendments, whereas the earlier 

state-court judgments concerned RIRSA. On this theory, passage of 

the 2015 Amendments -- by dint of "creating a distinct new 

law" -- worked a separate injury from that at issue in the statecourt litigation, and this should suffice to defeat the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Even assuming arguendo that appellants' claims are 

indeed based on the 2015 Amendments rather than RIRSA,7 appellants' 

6 In a different context, appellants assert that because they 

were not in support of the RIPERC class settlement, their inclusion 

in the class was improper, and thus that identicality of parties 

between the instant case and the state-court litigation would not 

be satisfied for res judicata purposes. This argument is a nonsequitur: The mere fact that appellants disapproved of the 

settlement, but were outnumbered by supportive class members, does 

not render them nonparties to the RIPERC action or the subsequent 

appeal to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. In any event, appellants

have not argued that they were not a "losing party" for purposes 

of the Rooker–Feldman doctrine, Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. at 

291, so any such contention has been waived. See Young v. Wells 

Fargo Bank, N.A., 717 F.3d 224, 239-40 (1st Cir. 2013). 

7 The district court rejected this characterization, finding 
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attempts to evade the Rooker-Feldman doctrine fail. Passage of 

the 2015 Amendments was a condition precedent for the settlement 

agreement that resolved the state-court pension litigation. 

Indeed, as the district court noted, "[t]he purportedly 

unconstitutional sections [of the 2015 Amendments] identified in 

the Complaint were contained verbatim in the settlement 

agreement," Efreom, 2021 WL 1424974, at *10, and the propriety of 

said settlement is the source of the alleged injury here. 

Appellants' attempt to undo the state-court rulings approving the 

settlement is precisely the sort of "end-run around a final statecourt judgment" that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine proscribes.8

Klimowicz v. Deutsche Bank Nat'l Tr. Co., 907 F.3d 61, 66 (1st 

that RIRSA was the true basis for appellants' claims. See Efreom, 

2021 WL 1424974, at *6-7. Nonetheless, the district court held,

as we do, that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine would bar the suit

"[e]ven if Counts I to IV were based on the 2015 [Amendments]."

Id. at *10-11. 

8 Appellants do not contest that a settlement agreement can 

be a "final judgment" for purposes of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. 

We thus assume, without deciding, that the settlement agreement at 

issue here was a final judgment under Rooker-Feldman. See

Crestview Vill. Apartments v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Dev., 383 F.3d 

552, 556 (7th Cir. 2004) ("For Rooker-Feldman purposes, a 'state 

court approved settlement agreement is a judgment or 

decision . . . .'" (quoting 4901 Corp. v. Town of Cicero, 220 F.3d 

522, 528 n.5 (7th Cir. 2000))); Reyes v. Fairfield Props., 661 F. 

Supp. 2d 249, 273 (E.D.N.Y. 2009) (holding that settlement 

agreements "constitute a state court judgment for purposes of 

Rooker–Feldman"); cf. Reppert v. Marvin Lumber & Cedar Co., 359 

F.3d 53, 56 (1st Cir. 2004) (noting that, in the context of res 

judicata and release, "it is beyond cavil that a suit can be barred 

by the earlier settlement of another suit" (quoting Nottingham 

Partners v. Trans-Lux Corp., 925 F.2d 29, 31-32 (1st Cir. 1991))).
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Cir. 2018). Appellants' attempted reliance on cases such as 

Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011) and Whole Woman's Health

v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. 582 (2016), abrogated on other grounds by

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022), is 

thus misplaced, as the instant suit does not present an 

"independent claim" from the state-court litigation. Skinner, 562 

U.S. at 532 (quoting Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. at 293).9 

That the instant claims are grounded in the Federal 

Constitution, rather than the Rhode Island Constitution, does not 

9 Skinner held that "a state-court decision is not reviewable 

by lower federal courts, but a statute or rule governing the 

decision may be challenged in a federal action." 562 U.S. at 532. 

Here, however, in challenging the settlement approved by the Rhode 

Island state court, appellants do not contest any rule or law 

governing the state-court decisions, but "challenge the adverse 

[state-court] decisions themselves." Id. This, per Skinner, is 

exactly what the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars. Id. 

Whole Woman's Health, which did not involve the 

Rooker-Feldman doctrine, is even less on point. In Whole Woman's 

Health, the Supreme Court found that res judicata did not bar an 

as-applied, postenforcement challenge to a Texas law imposing an 

onerous admitting-privileges requirement on abortion providers, 

where the factual landscape changed dramatically after the 

litigants brought a preenforcement challenge to the law. 579 U.S. 

at 601. There are no such "changed circumstances" or "new material 

facts" here that generate a new constitutional claim. Id. at 599, 

601. While appellants express general displeasure with Rhode 

Island's implementation of the pension reforms, and hypothesize 

that the state may attempt to shirk its pension obligations in the 

future, appellants have not articulated a specific, cognizable 

claim that Rhode Island's postenactment behavior vis-à-vis the 

2015 Amendments violates the Constitution. Any argument to this 

effect has thus been waived. See United States v. Zannino, 895 

F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues adverted to in a perfunctory 

manner, unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, 

are deemed waived.").
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provide any succor for appellants. "[A] plaintiff cannot escape 

the Rooker–Feldman bar through the simple expedient of introducing 

a new legal theory in the federal forum that was not broached in 

the state courts." Id. Indeed, our precedents make clear that 

litigants cannot "avoid the impact of the Rooker–Feldman doctrine 

simply by recasting [their] claims in federal court as arising 

under the United States Constitution, where adjudicating these 

claims would 'necessarily require reviewing the merits of the 

[state court's] decision.'" Sinapi, 910 F.3d at 549 (quoting

McKenna v. Curtin, 869 F.3d 44, 48 (1st Cir. 2017)); see also

Maymó-Meléndez v. Álvarez-Ramírez, 364 F.3d 27, 33 (1st Cir. 2004) 

("Rooker–Feldman does not depend on what issues were actually 

litigated in the state court; and it is enough that granting 

[litigants the relief they] seek[] would effectively overturn the 

state court's decision.").10

Appellants also claim that Rooker–Feldman should not 

apply because their due process rights were violated by the Rhode 

10 We note, in any event, that appellants' federal claims 

largely echo their previous attacks on the propriety of the 

settlement in state court. Indeed, the fairness, adequacy, and 

reasonableness of the settlement agreement (including the proposed 

legislation that became the 2015 Amendments) were energetically 

contested at the fairness hearing, approved by the Superior Court, 

and affirmed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court. See RIPERC II, 

2015 WL 3648161, at *31; Clifford, 184 A.3d at 695. The fact that 

the issues appellants now raise in federal court were, in 

substantial measure, raised and rejected in state court accords 

with our independent conclusion that these claims are grounded in 

an injury attributable to the state-court judgments.
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Island courts' decision to certify the RIPERC class under Rule 

23(b)(2) of the Rhode Island Superior Court Rules of Civil 

Procedure, which does not afford class members any opt-out rights. 

In support of their argument, appellants allege that they were 

treated differently from another group of pension litigants 

opposed to the settlement agreement -- i.e., the active police 

officers and fire personnel of the City of Cranston (the "Cranston 

litigants") -- who were not included in the certified class and 

thus able to litigate separately. See Cranston Firefighters, 880 

F.3d at 47 (noting that while the Cranston litigants "receive some 

of the advantages of the 2015 Amendments, they did not participate 

in the settlement, and their members are not subject to the state 

court judgment approving the settlement"). Asserting that the 

"[s]tate [c]ourts did not take up the issue of the[ir] disapproval" 

of the settlement or consider their "repeated[] request[s]" to opt 

out of the class, in light of the Cranston litigants' exclusion 

therefrom, appellants posit that they were denied due process.

This alleged due process violation, appellants suggest, generates 

an exception to the Rooker–Feldman jurisdictional bar.11

11 The existence of an exception wherever there is a claim of 

a due process violation is dubious. See, e.g., Abbott v. Michigan, 

474 F.3d 324, 330 (6th Cir. 2007) (concluding that "the Supreme 

Court's recent decisions do not support the plaintiffs' asserted 

'reasonable opportunity' exception to the Rooker–Feldman

doctrine"); Postma v. First Fed. Sav. & Loan of Sioux City, 74 

F.3d 160, 162 n.3 (8th Cir. 1996) ("[T]here is no procedural due 

process exception to the Rooker–Feldman doctrine."). For a survey 
- 20 -

Appellants' due process claim, however, does not clear 

Rooker–Feldman's hurdle. The propriety of the class certification

under Rule 23(b)(2) -- and appellants' assertion that they ought 

to have been afforded an "opt out" right -- were in fact 

extensively litigated in state court. See RIPERC I, 2015 WL 

1872189, at *7-8 (determining that the proposed class met the 

criteria for certification under Rule 23(b)(2) of the Rhode Island 

Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure); RIPERC II, 2015 WL 

3648161, at *13-14, *24 (noting certain class members' "desire to 

'opt out' of the current settlement" but determining that "due 

process does not require that the Objectors be given the 

opportunity to 'opt out' of a Rule 23(b)(2) class action 

settlement"); Clifford, 184 A.3d at 685-90 (discussing class 

certification and certain litigants' asserted opt-out rights, but 

concluding that "trial justice's inclusion of the Retiree 

plaintiffs in the retiree subclass was proper" and that "the trial 

justice did not abuse her discretion in certifying the class 

pursuant" to Rule 23(b)(2)). Thus, in no way were appellants 

of the jurisprudential thicket surrounding this issue, see 

generally 18B Wright, Miller & Cooper, Federal Practice and 

Procedure § 4469.3, at 163-70 (3d ed. 2019) (stating that "[s]tatecourt disregard of due process rights creates genuine trouble for 

the Rooker–Feldman jurisdiction theory," but noting that much 

caselaw "suggest[s] that federal jurisdiction is defeated [even] 

by a state judgment entered after proceedings that did not afford 

a full-and-fair opportunity to litigate, and indeed did not satisfy 

due process requirements").
- 21 -

denied the opportunity to be "actually heard on their claims." 

Accordingly, even if we were to agree that federal jurisdiction 

might be available in certain instances where a party was denied

a full-and-fair opportunity to litigate its claims, no such 

exception to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is applicable here. See

Mandel v. Town of Orleans, 326 F.3d 267, 272 & n.4 (1st Cir. 2003) 

(denying jurisdiction under Rooker-Feldman to federal due process 

challenge to state child custody enforcement proceedings when 

challenger "was formally a party to the enforcement proceeding and 

was free to ask the state court to undo or revisit its enforcement 

order on constitutional or other grounds").

"The Rooker–Feldman doctrine bars parties who lost in 

state court from 'seeking review and rejection of that judgment'

in federal court." Puerto Ricans for P.R. Party v. Dalmau, 544 

F.3d 58, 68 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. 

at 291). In attempting to effectively overturn the decisions of 

the Rhode Island state courts approving the RIPERC class-action 

settlement, Appellants in Counts I-IV run afoul of this stricture. 

Because under Rooker–Feldman "[o]nly the Supreme Court of the 

United States may invalidate state court civil judgments," see

Miller v. Nichols, 586 F.3d 53, 59 (1st Cir. 2009), we lack 

jurisdiction over these claims. 

3. Appellants' First Amendment Claims Are Nonjusticiable

Appellants lastly challenge the provisions of the 
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settlement agreement that prohibited them from lobbying, directly 

or indirectly, for pension benefits other than as provided in the 

draft legislation that became the 2015 Amendments. By imposing 

such a restriction, appellants argue, these provisions created a 

"chilling effect" that violated their First Amendment rights to 

free speech and to petition the government for a redress of 

grievances. Accordingly, in their prayer for relief, appellants 

ask that these provisions of the settlement agreement be declared 

unconstitutional. 

Before we can consider the merits of this argument, 

however, we must again assess whether we have jurisdiction, or if

appellants instead lack standing to raise this claim. The 

"[s]tanding doctrine assures respect for the Constitution's 

limitation of '[t]he judicial Power' to 'Cases' and 

'Controversies.'" Hochendoner v. Genzyme Corp., 823 F.3d 724, 731 

(1st Cir. 2016) (alteration in original) (quoting U.S. Const. art. 

III, § 2, cl. 1). In assessing whether litigants have 

constitutional standing, we look to the "familiar amalgam of injury 

in fact, causation, and redressability," which injury "must be 

both 'concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not 

conjectural or hypothetical.'" Id. (quoting Van Wagner Bos., LLC

v. Davey, 770 F.3d 33, 37 (1st Cir. 2014)). Redressability 

concerns the "likelihood that the requested relief will redress 

the alleged injury." Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 103. "To determine 
- 23 -

whether an injury is redressable, a court will consider the 

relationship between 'the judicial relief requested' and the 

'injury' suffered." California v. Texas, 141 S. Ct. 2104, 2115 

(2021) (quoting Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 753 n.19 (1984)). 

Per the terms of the settlement agreement, the covenant 

providing that the parties "will not, directly or indirectly, 

propose, support, encourage or advocate for any legislative action 

concerning or relating to retirement benefits other than the 

adoption of the [2015 Amendments]" expired upon "final approval of

the settlement and enactment of the [2015 Amendments] and entry of 

judgment." All of these conditions were met in 2015, meaning that 

any chilling effect of this covenant ceased years before the 

instant litigation commenced.12 As such, at the time appellants'

federal complaint was filed, appellants were free to petition the 

government as they wished regarding their retirement benefits. 

Appellants thus allege only a past injury in relation to their 

First Amendment claim. Their complaint does not seek any damages 

for that claim, cf. Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 141 S. Ct. 792, 796 

12 The agreement also restricted the ability of the parties 

to "directly or indirectly, propose, support, encourage and/or 

advocate that any other person, firm or entity do anything or 

refrain from doing something that a party to this Settlement 

Agreement would be prohibited from doing or refraining from doing 

hereunder," and provided that this covenant is "unlimited as to 

time." However, because the restrictions on appellants' pension 

advocacy lapsed upon the satisfaction of the conditions laid out 

above, any chilling effect from this covenant similarly thawed in 

2015. 
- 24 -

(2021) (holding that "an award of nominal damages by itself can 

redress a past injury"), and it is plain that plaintiffs lack 

standing to seek declaratory relief with respect to a past injury 

when such relief cannot redress the injury. See Berner v. 

Delahanty, 129 F.3d 20, 24 (1st Cir. 1997) (explaining that "a 

party seek[ing] exclusively injunctive or declaratory relief" has 

standing only upon showing "'a sufficient likelihood that he will 

again be wronged in a similar way'" (quoting City of Los Angeles

v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 111 (1983))); Am. Postal Workers Union v. 

Frank, 968 F.2d 1373, 1376-77 (1st Cir. 1992) (holding that 

plaintiffs lacked standing to seek declaratory or injunctive 

relief that would "provide no relief for an injury that is, and 

likely will remain, entirely in the past"; Lyons, 461 U.S. at 109-

10 (past injury, absent a reasonable likelihood of future 

repetition, provided apparent standing to pursue damages but no

standing to seek injunctive relief); California, 141 S. Ct. at 

2114-15 (challenge to an unenforceable statutory provision failed 

because there was no present or anticipated injury resulting from 

the provision's enforcement, and neither injunctive nor 

declaratory relief could provide redress in such circumstances). 

Because appellants have not alleged any ongoing or 

potential injury from the now-inoperative covenants at issue, and 

have not sought relief that could redress their alleged past 

injury, their First Amendment claim lacks the "elements of a 
- 25 -

justiciable controversy." Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 95. "To find 

standing here to attack an unenforceable . . . provision would 

allow a federal court to issue what would amount to 'an advisory 

opinion without the possibility of any judicial relief.'" 

California, 141 S. Ct. at 2116 (quoting Lyons, 461 U.S. at 129 

(Marshall, J., dissenting)). Under Article III, we lack such 

authority. Id.; see also Mangual v. Rotger-Sabat, 317 F.3d 45, 60

(1st Cir. 2003) ("If events have transpired to render a court 

opinion merely advisory, Article III considerations require 

dismissal of the case."); N.E. Reg'l Council of Carpenters v. 

Kinton, 284 F.3d 9, 18 (1st Cir. 2002) (noting that "it would be 

pointless . . . to declare [the] constitutional status" of a 

restriction "that is no longer in effect").13 As such, we dismiss 

appellants' First Amendment claim for lack of standing.

III. Conclusion

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

13 Because we lack Article III jurisdiction over the First 

Amendment claim, we need not address the district court's 

conclusion that the claim was also barred by the Rooker–Feldman

doctrine. See Efreom, 2021 WL 1424974, at *11.