Opinion ID: 4564362
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Finality of state court action

Text: Ms. MacIntyre argues the state-court foreclosure proceeding was not final under Rooker-Feldman when she filed her federal complaint. She further argues her state-court proceeding does not satisfy any of the conditions for finality that we noted in Guttman v. Khalsa, including:
available has affirmed the judgment below and nothing is left to be resolved; (2) if the state action has reached a 7 point where neither party seeks further action; or (3) if the state court proceedings have finally resolved all the federal questions in the litigation, but state law or purely factual questions (whether great or small) remain to be litigated. 446 F.3d 1027, 1032 n.2 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Guttman, we held the plaintiff’s state-court proceeding was not final because his certiorari petition with the New Mexico Supreme Court was pending when he filed his federal action. See id. at 1032. Ms. MacIntyre characterizes her situation as only “a slight variation on . . . Guttman.” Aplt. Opening Br. (19-1290) at 27. But the difference is dispositive. Two years before she filed her federal action, the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed, at her request, her petition for a writ of certiorari from the CCA’s decision affirming the foreclosure judgment. Thus, unlike in Guttman, Ms. MacIntyre had no pending petition before the state’s highest court when she filed her federal action. Ms. MacIntyre also asserts her state-court proceeding was not final “because the Colorado Supreme Court did not affirm the judgment of foreclosure” but, instead, “dismissed the petition for certiorari on mootness grounds.” Id. at 25 (emphasis added) (citation omitted). But we have cited Guttman for the broader principle that Rooker-Feldman applies when the “state court appeals process has run its full course.” Erlandson v. Northglenn Mun. Court, 528 F.3d 785, 788 n.3 (10th Cir. 2008). In Erlandson, we found the state-court proceeding final for purposes of Rooker-Feldman when the Colorado Supreme Court did not affirm the trial-court 8 judgment but, instead, denied the federal plaintiff’s certiorari petition. See id. Similarly, when the Colorado Supreme Court dismissed Ms. MacIntyre’s certiorari petition, the “state court appeals process ha[d] run its full course.” Id. The CCA’s order denying her March 2019 motion to vacate, confirmed her appeal was final in January 2017—two years before she commenced her federal action. Finally, Ms. MacIntyre argues the state court action is not final because she will “seek further action” by “filing a Petition for a Rule to Show Cause in the Colorado Supreme Court to vacate the state-court-judgment.” Aplt. Opening Br. (191290) at 25-26 (internal quotation marks omitted).3 But she concedes such a petition would be subject to the appellate rule “govern[ing] supreme court original proceedings” without “any time limit on filing,” and would not be “a continuation of the concluded appellate process.” Id. at 26 (internal quotation marks omitted). She offers no authority—and we know of none—for her claim that a party can avoid finality under Rooker-Feldman by initiating, let alone expressing an intention to initiate, an original proceeding in a state appellate court after an appeal has concluded. See Garcia, 946 F.3d at 1210 n.11 (noting an argument unsupported by authority is waived). 3 According to Chase, Ms. MacIntyre still “ha[d] not filed such petition” as of January 2020. Aplee. Br. (19-1290) at 18 n.10. 9 b. Rooker-Feldman precludes review of state-court judgment Ms. MacIntyre next argues her complaint does not implicate Rooker-Feldman because she is not “complaining of injuries caused by [the] state-court judgment[]” and is not “inviting district court review and rejection of [that] judgment[].” Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. at 284. We disagree. Her sole claim is that Chase fraudulently procured both the foreclosure judgment and the orders denying her motions to stay execution of the judgment. For a federal court to grant relief on her claim, it necessarily would have to find that the judgment and post-judgment orders were fraudulently procured. Her claim therefore depends on a federal court finding that the state courts erred in entering judgment for Chase. Rooker-Feldman prohibits such review. See Exxon Mobil Corp., 544 U.S. at 284. Ms. MacIntyre’s attempts to distance her claim from Rooker-Feldman are unavailing. She contends she is seeking redress for injuries caused by the alleged fraud and not by the state-court judgment itself. But her injuries are based entirely on the court-ordered sale of her house. She has identified no injury independent of the state-court orders, and she admitted that vacatur of the foreclosure judgment by the state appellate courts “might obviate the need for this lawsuit,” R. Vol. 1 at 45. Because “an element of [her] claim” is “that the state court wrongfully entered its judgment,” Rooker-Feldman squarely applies. Campbell v. City of Spencer, 682 F.3d 1278, 1283 (10th Cir. 2012); cf. Mayotte v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 880 F.3d 1169, 10 1176 (10th Cir. 2018) (holding Rooker-Feldman did not apply because the plaintiff could “prove her claims without any reference to the state-court proceedings”); P.J. ex rel. Jensen v. Wagner, 603 F.3d 1182, 1193-94 (10th Cir. 2010) (holding RookerFeldman did not apply because the claims did “not rest on any allegation concerning the state-court proceedings or judgment” and “would be identical even if there were no state-court orders” (internal quotation marks omitted)).4 Ms. MacIntyre also argues Rooker-Feldman does not apply because she is seeking only monetary damages, not vacatur of the foreclosure judgment. But seeking monetary damages without explicitly seeking to overturn or modify the state-court judgment does not mean a claim can escape Rooker-Feldman’s reach. To the contrary, claims for monetary damages can implicate Rooker-Feldman. See Wagner, 603 F.3d at 1193 (distinguishing claims for monetary damages from claims for prospective injunctive and declaratory relief for purposes of Rooker-Feldman). In seeking monetary damages based on “the irreversible loss of her primary residence, combined with her subsequent displacement due to eviction,” R. Vol. 1 at 11, Ms. MacIntyre’s “requested relief would necessarily undo the [Colorado] state 4 Ms. MacIntyre contends the district court improperly conflated RookerFeldman with preclusion. See Mayotte, 880 F.3d at 1175 (“[A]ttempts merely to relitigate an issue determined in a state case are properly analyzed under issue or claim preclusion principles rather than Rooker-Feldman.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). We perceive no such doctrinal confusion in the district court’s order. And in any event, our review of the dismissal is de novo. 11 court’s judgment because it would place [her] back in the position [she] occupied prior to the [foreclosure],” Mo’s Express, LLC v. Sopkin, 441 F.3d 1229, 1237 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). Ms. MacIntyre further contends a claim for money damages based on a fraudulent state-court foreclosure judgment is exempt from Rooker-Feldman. But in Tal v. Hogan, 453 F.3d 1244 (10th Cir. 2006), we rejected the plaintiff’s similar attempt to circumvent Rooker-Feldman by claiming the defendant “committed fraud on appeal” in state court. Id. at 1255. We noted “new allegations of fraud might create grounds for appeal, but that appeal should be brought in the state courts.” Id. at 1256. Ms. MacIntyre attempts to distinguish Tal by describing her claim as involving “not new fraud” but rather the “same fraud that she argued before the state court.” Aplt. Reply Br. (19-1290) at 10 (internal quotation marks omitted). But Tal not only recognized that “new allegations of fraud” could come within the Rooker-Feldman prohibition, but also allegations that the federal defendant “continue[d] to make false claims.” Tal, 453 F.3d at 1256 (emphasis added). In particular, we observed that the state appellate court “was confronted with and reviewed the same ‘fraud’ as the trial court” and that “[i]ts holding is equally applicable to the ‘fraud’ alleged at the trial court level . . . as it was to the ‘fraud’ allegedly perpetrated before its very eyes.” Id. at 1257. The same is true with Ms. MacIntyre’s claim that Chase fraudulently procured the foreclosure judgment and the denial of her motions for a stay. Her 12 attempt to distinguish Tal fails, and her “loss in state court precludes a second round in federal court.” Id.