Opinion ID: 783388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Inapplicability of Rooker-Feldman

Text: 65 As a preliminary matter, we decide that Noel's nine wiretapping and mobile home claims are not barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. As with Noel's fiduciary duty claim, above, applying our general formulation of Rooker-Feldman is straightforward. When the district court dismissed these claims as claim-precluded, Sandra Hall and Noel had already litigated very similar claims to judgment in state court. In asserting his wiretapping and mobile home claims in federal district court, Noel thus sought to litigate claims that under Washington law possibly should have been asserted in that state court litigation. 66 Noel's suit in federal district court was not a forbidden de facto appeal of the earlier state court judgments. In bringing his federal district court suit, Noel sought to litigate claims that were related to claims that had already been litigated, but Noel neither asserted as a legal wrong an allegedly erroneous decision by the state court in the earlier state court litigation nor sought relief from the state court judgment. Rather, he asserted as legal wrongs allegedly illegal acts committed by a party against whom he had previously litigated, and sought to litigate related claims against that party. Therefore, Noel's ability to sue in federal court is limited by § 1738 and the state law of claim preclusion, not by Rooker-Feldman. 67 The claims Noel sought to litigate in federal district court were clearly related to claims that had gone to judgment in the earlier state court litigation. Indeed, because the federal and state court claims arose out of the same sequence of interrelated events, the issues in the federal and state court litigation were almost certainly inextricably intertwined in the ordinary language sense. But the issues were not inextricably intertwined in the sense of Rooker-Feldman. Because Noel has not brought a forbidden de facto appeal from any of the earlier state court judgments, the inextricably intertwined analysis of Feldman does not apply. The district court thus properly exercised subject matter jurisdiction to analyze the claims under state claim preclusion law as required by § 1738.