Opinion ID: 201605
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Exxon Mobil

Text: 20 These tests of state court judgment finality in our application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine have now been superseded by the explanation of that doctrine in Exxon Mobil. We briefly summarize that case for context. 21 Saudi Basic Industries Corporation sued Exxon Mobil in Delaware state court for a declaratory judgment that it did not owe Exxon Mobil any money from a contractual agreement; Exxon Mobil counterclaimed for the money. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil filed a declaratory judgment action in federal court as an insurance policy in case it lost the state court lawsuit. The state case went to judgment first, and the jury found for Exxon Mobil, awarding it a large verdict on its counterclaim. Saudi Basic appealed the judgment to the Delaware Supreme Court. See 125 S.Ct. at 1524-25. 22 Meanwhile, the federal action proceeded. Exxon Mobil's claims in federal court were essentially identical to its defenses and counterclaims in state court. On an interlocutory appeal related to foreign sovereign immunity, the Third Circuit sua sponte concluded that Exxon Mobil's claims were identical to claims actually litigated in state court, and ordered the claim dismissed pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See id. at 1525-26. 23 The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding: 24 The Rooker-Feldman doctrine ... is confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: 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 review and rejection of those judgments. Rooker-Feldman does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions. 25 Id. at 1521-22. The Court specifically limited the doctrine to cases in the procedural posture of Rooker and Feldman themselves: 26 Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances in which this Court's appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28 U.S.C. § 1257, precludes a United States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction in an action it would otherwise be empowered to adjudicate under a congressional grant of authority[.] In both cases, the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment. Plaintiffs in both cases, alleging federal-question jurisdiction, called upon the District Court to overturn an injurious state-court judgment. Because § 1257, as long interpreted, vests authority to review a state court's judgment solely in this Court, the District Courts in Rooker and Feldman lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. 27 Id. at 1526 (citations omitted). 28 In short, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine now applies only in the limited circumstances where the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment. Id. The doctrine does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions. Id. at 1522.