Opinion ID: 4446415
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Inextricably Intertwined” Issues

Text: We explained the rationale and application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine in Jakupovic v. Curran: 6 No. 18-3260 Lower federal courts are not vested with appel- late authority over state courts. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents lower federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over cases brought by state court losers challenging state court judg- ments rendered before the district court pro- ceedings commenced. The rationale for the doc- trine is that no matter how wrong a state court judgment may be under federal law, only the Supreme Court of the United States has jurisdic- tion to review it. The initial inquiry, then, is whether the federal plaintiﬀ seeks to set aside a state court judgment or whether he is, in fact, presenting an independent claim. To make this determination, we ask whether the federal claims either “directly” challenge a state court judgment or are “inextricably intertwined” with one. 850 F.3d 898, 902 (7th Cir. 2017) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Swartzes’ § 1983 claims are not direct challenges to any state court order, so to be implicated by Rooker-Feldman they must be “inextricably intertwined” with a state court judgment. Id. Because the injury the Swartzes protest—the seizure and subsequent permanent placement of their livestock—was eﬀectuated by several orders of the Superior Court of Washington County, their claims are inextricably intertwined with state court judgments. The state court’s ﬁnding of probable cause and ordered seizure of the animals produced the injury claimed by the Swartzes. This is true even though the Swartzes now claim that the injury originated in a conspiracy among mixed state No. 18-3260 7 and private actors. To ﬁnd that the defendants acted wrongfully in seizing the animals would call into question the state court’s judgment that there was probable cause the animals were being neglected under Indiana law. The same problem arises with the court’s permanent placement determination, reimbursement order, and the pretrial diversion agreement: if the animals were not being neglected, there would be no basis for permanently housing them elsewhere or for requiring the Swartzes to reimburse Heartland for the animals’ care. When a state court judgment is the cause of a plaintiﬀs’ injury, Rooker-Feldman bars federal review. “If the injury alleged resulted from the state court judgment itself, RookerFeldman directs that the lower federal courts lack jurisdiction.” Crestview Vill. Apartments v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev., 383 F.3d 552, 556 (7th Cir. 2004). This is the case even when plaintiﬀs allege that the state court judgment was obtained through the defendants’ bad faith actions. In Crestview, for example, the plaintiﬀ alleged that a conspiracy among city oﬃcials and private actors led to a state court ordering plaintiﬀ to remedy alleged building code violations. Id. at 554–55. Despite the plaintiﬀ’s invocation of a civil rights conspiracy, this Court held that the injuries in the complaint were the practical result of a state court judgment, and thus barred under Rooker-Feldman: Each count of Crestview’s federal complaint al- leges that, as a result of a conspiracy involving defendants, it was injured in that it was “forced to defend unsubstantiated lawsuits, and exces- sively harsh administrative actions....” [] Thus, in essence, Crestview is challenging as baseless the state court order requiring Crestview to cure 8 No. 18-3260 the building code violations. After all, Crestview’s alleged injury—having to defend unsubstantiated lawsuits—was only complete after the state court entered the order and thereby made an implicit ﬁnding that the suit was not unsubstantiated. Id. at 556; see also Garry v. Geils, 82 F.3d 1362, 1368 (7th Cir. 1996) (“The plaintiﬀs are essentially claiming injury due to a state judgment against them—the judgment condemning a portion of the Garry property. … While the plaintiﬀs complain that the defendants moved the proposed ditch location as an act of political retaliation against them, the injury alleged was only complete when the state court actually condemned the property.”); Wright v. Tackett, 39 F.3d 155, 158 (7th Cir. 1994) (“Wright may not seek a reversal of a state court judgment simply by casting his complaint in the form of a civil rights action.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Wright, the plaintiﬀ alleged a conspiracy of state and private actors in violation of § 1983 based on the “bald assertions” that courts ruled against him during a foreclosure, and that the private defendants “unlawfully participated in the foreclosure actions.” Id. at 157. We held that there was no federal jurisdiction over the plaintiﬀ’s § 1983 conspiracy claims: “Although Wright’s complaint presented several constitutional—albeit conclusory—claims, those claims are inextricably intertwined with the various state court determinations handed down previously.” Id. The Swartzes’ alleged conspiracy, in which Lee, Lovejoy, and others worked in concert to give false claims of animal neglect to the court, is the type of claim routinely dismissed under Rooker-Feldman, as were the claims in Crestview, Garry, No. 18-3260 9 and Wright. See, e.g., Matter of Lisse, 921 F.3d 629, 641 (7th Cir. 2019) (“Nora’s repeated fraud accusations do not change the calculus. … Federal courts do not exist to provide disappointed state-court losers a second bite at the apple.”); Mains v. Citibank, N.A., 852 F.3d 669, 677 (7th Cir. 2017) (holding that plaintiﬀ’s conspiracy claims were “barred by Rooker-Feldman, because they are dependent upon and interwoven with the state-court litigation”); Harold v. Steel, 773 F.3d 884, 886–87 (7th Cir. 2014) (rejecting plaintiﬀ’s contention that false statements to court could be separated from resulting order, because “[n]o injury occurred until the state judge ruled against” plaintiﬀ); Kelley, 548 F.3d at 605 (“We could not determine that defendants’ representations and requests related to attorney fees violated the law without determining that the state court erred by issuing judgments granting the attorney fees. … [W]e are still barred from evaluating claims, such as this one, where all of the allegedly improper relief was granted by state courts.”). Here as well, the Swartzes’ alleged injury was directly caused by the state court’s orders: ﬁrst to seize their animals, and then to permanently place them with other owners and force the Swartzes to reimburse Heartland for their care.