Court Opinion

ID: 9410441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-21 14:00:34.330028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:58.035209
License: Public Domain

21-1473
Hunter v. McMahon

                            In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                       FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

                              AUGUST TERM 2022
                                No. 21-1473

                            DOMINIQUE HUNTER,
                             Plaintiff-Appellant,

                                       v.

      CHERYL MCMAHON, CPS EMPLOYEE; CAROL HENDERSON, CPS
     EMPLOYEE; THOMAS DIMILLO, NIAGARA COUNTY FAMILY COURT
    JUDGE; NIAGARA COUNTY CLERK EMPLOYEES (NAMES UNKNOWN);
    VANESSA GUITE, RETAINED COUNSEL; LAWRENCE LINDSAY, COURT
    ASSIGNED COUNSEL; KATHLEEN WOJTASZEK-GARIANO, NIAGARA
      COUNTY FAMILY COURT JUDGE; MUNICIPAL NIAGARA COUNTY;
           CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES OF NIAGARA COUNTY,
                       Defendants-Appellees. *

              On Appeal from the United States District Court
                  for the Western District of New York

                       SUBMITTED: NOVEMBER 23, 2022
                          DECIDED: JULY 21, 2023

*   The Clerk of Court is directed to amend the caption as set forth above.
Before:      KEARSE, PARK, and MENASHI, Circuit Judges.

      Niagara County’s Child Protective Services successfully
petitioned in Niagara County Family Court to strip Dominique
Hunter of her parental rights over her minor son. Hunter appealed
the Family Court’s decision. While that appeal was pending, she
brought suit in federal court against officials and entities involved in
terminating her parental rights. The district court dismissed Hunter’s
suit pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We hold that the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine does not apply when an appeal remains pending in
state court. Rooker-Feldman applies only after the state proceedings
have ended. We reverse the judgment of the district court insofar as
it dismissed Hunter’s complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
We vacate the judgment insofar as the district court denied Hunter’s
motions for leave to amend and for additional time to serve
defendants. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.

             Dominique Hunter, pro se, Niagara Falls, NY, for Plaintiff-
             Appellant.
             Brian P. Crosby, Gibson, McAskill & Crosby, LLP,
             Buffalo, NY, for Defendants-Appellees Cheryl McMahon;
             CPS Employees; Niagara County Clerk Employees (Names
             Unknown); Lawrence Lindsay, Court Assigned Counsel;
             Municipal Niagara County; and Child Protective Services of
             Niagara County.
             Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Victor
             Paladino, Senior Assistant Solicitor General, Sarah L.
             Rosenbluth, Assistant Solicitor General, for Letitia James,
             Attorney General of the State of New York, Albany, NY,

                                   2
             for Defendants-Appellees Judges Thomas DiMillo and
             Kathleen Wojtaszek-Gariano.

MENASHI, Circuit Judge:

      The Child Protective Services division of the Niagara County
Department of Social Services (“CPS”) determined that Dominique
Hunter was unfit to retain parental rights over her minor son C.W.
CPS successfully petitioned in state family court to terminate
Hunter’s parental rights. Hunter appealed. While Hunter’s appeal
was pending, she brought suit in federal court against CPS employees
and other public officials and entities. The district court dismissed
Hunter’s suit. The district court concluded that it lacked subject
matter jurisdiction pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which
bars “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.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus.
Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). We disagree.

      Rooker-Feldman applies when “the losing party in state court
filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended.” Id. at 291
(emphasis added). When an appeal remains pending in state court,
the state proceedings have not ended and Rooker-Feldman does not
apply. Because Hunter filed her federal suit before the state
proceedings were over, Rooker-Feldman did not deprive the district
court of jurisdiction. Moreover, Rooker-Feldman would not bar all of
Hunter’s claims in this case even if the state proceedings had reached
finality. We reverse the judgment of the district court insofar as it
dismissed Hunter’s complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,
and we vacate the judgment insofar as the district court denied

                                    3
Hunter’s motions for leave to amend and for additional time to serve
defendants. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.

                            BACKGROUND

         On May 10, 2017, Dominique Hunter’s minor son C.W. had a
half-day at school. Hunter claims she did not know that C.W. would
be coming home early that day. So when the school bus arrived with
C.W., Hunter was not there to greet him. C.W. has special needs and
cannot be left alone. The Niagara County Department of Social
Services therefore took emergency custody of C.W. without a court
order.

         CPS claims that while C.W. was in CPS custody, he informed
CPS employees that his mother had been hitting him and that he was
afraid of her. 1 CPS had previously suspected Hunter of abusing and
neglecting C.W. Indeed, CPS discovered that C.W. was unattended
on May 10 because CPS caseworker Cheryl McMahon went to
Hunter’s house for an unannounced visit to investigate a report that
Hunter had used excessive corporal punishment against C.W.

         The next day, CPS Supervisor Carol Henderson filed a petition
of child neglect with the Family Court of New York, County of
Niagara. After a hearing with Hunter present, Judge Thomas DiMillo
ordered the temporary removal of C.W. from Hunter’s custody. At a
later hearing before Judge Kathleen Wojtaszek-Gariano, Hunter
agreed to a finding of neglect of C.W. without admission.

1 Hunter disputes this account. See Supp. App’x 11 (alleging that CPS relied
on “false claims” that “CW stated he had been hit by plaintiff mother
[Hunter] and was afraid”).

                                     4
      Under the fact-finding order, Hunter needed to meet certain
requirements—including taking anger-management classes and
undergoing a mental-health evaluation—to regain custody of C.W.
Hunter alleges that she met these requirements. But after a hearing in
April 2019, Judge Wojtaszek-Gariano determined that Hunter had not
completed the required programs and had not visited C.W. since May
2017. Hunter did not appear at the hearing; she claims that she did
not know when it was taking place. Judge Wojtaszek-Gariano ordered
that guardianship and custody of C.W. be transferred to the Niagara
County Department of Social Services, which was authorized to
consent to the adoption of C.W. without Hunter’s consent. On May
21, 2019, Hunter filed a notice of appeal from this family-court
judgment.

      While Hunter’s appeal was pending in state court, she brought
suit in federal court. She sued McMahon, Henderson, Judge DiMillo,
Judge Wojtaszek-Gariano, and other officials and entities. In her
amended complaint, Hunter alleges that these defendants committed
torts against her and violated her constitutional rights. See Supp.
App’x 14-15. She requests monetary damages and a permanent
injunction ordering the return of her son to her custody. Hunter filed
her complaint pro se.

      The district court dismissed the complaint without prejudice
because it concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. In the
district court’s view, Rooker-Feldman barred the action because
“Hunter ‘lost’ in Family Court ... before Hunter filed the instant
lawsuit” and “[t]he remedies Hunter seeks—C.W.’s return,
expungement of records, and money damages—would require this
Court to review and reject the merits underlying the Family Court
judgments.” Hunter v. McMahon, No. 20-CV-0018, 2021 WL 1996772,

                                  5
at *2 (W.D.N.Y. May 19, 2021). The district court concluded that
Hunter’s “claims either already have been decided by the Family
Court or are ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the claims already
decided by the Family Court.” Id. at *3 (alteration omitted) (quoting
the report and recommendation of the magistrate judge).

      The district court denied Hunter leave to amend her complaint
on the ground that amendment would be futile because “[e]verything
that Hunter asks of this Court ... would require it to review and reject
the Family Court judgments, something it does not have the power to
do.” Id. Additionally, the district court denied as futile Hunter’s
motion for a second extension of time to serve certain defendants.

      Hunter timely appealed.

                      STANDARD OF REVIEW

      “Because Rooker-Feldman goes to subject-matter jurisdiction, we
review de novo the district court’s application of the doctrine.”
Hoblock v. Albany Cnty. Bd. of Elections, 422 F.3d 77, 83 (2d Cir. 2005).
In fact, “we have an independent obligation to consider the presence
or absence of subject matter jurisdiction sua sponte.” Joseph v. Leavitt,
465 F.3d 87, 89 (2d Cir. 2006). Moreover, “[w]hen the denial of leave
to amend is based on a legal interpretation, such as a determination
that amendment would be futile, a reviewing court conducts a de novo
review.” Hutchison v. Deutsche Bank Sec. Inc., 647 F.3d 479, 490 (2d Cir.
2011). In conducting our review, “[w]e construe complaints filed by
pro se litigants liberally and ‘interpret them to raise the strongest
arguments that they suggest.’” Pabon v. Wright, 459 F.3d 241, 248 (2d
Cir. 2006) (quoting Burgos v. Hopkins, 14 F.3d 787, 790 (2d Cir. 1994)).

                                   6
                            DISCUSSION

      Hunter argues that Rooker-Feldman does not bar her federal
lawsuit. We agree. Rooker-Feldman applies only after state-court
proceedings have “ended.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 291. Those
proceedings had not ended by the time Hunter filed her federal
lawsuit because an appeal remained pending in state court. Because
federal courts “assess[] jurisdiction … as of the moment the complaint
was filed,” E.R. Squibb & Sons, Inc. v. Lloyd’s & Cos., 241 F.3d 154, 163
(2d Cir. 2001), Rooker-Feldman presents no jurisdictional bar to
proceeding with Hunter’s federal suit. In addition, at least some of
Hunter’s claims would not be barred by Rooker-Feldman even if the
state-court proceedings had ended before the filing of the federal suit.

      We reverse the judgment of the district court insofar as it
dismissed Hunter’s complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
We vacate the judgment insofar as the district court denied Hunter’s
motions for leave to amend and for additional time to serve
defendants. We remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.

                                    I

      Until Congress provides otherwise, the only federal court to
which a litigant may appeal from a state-court judgment is the
Supreme Court of the United States. See 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” when federal law is implicated).
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine, named after a pair of Supreme Court

                                   7
decisions that applied this rule, 2 “is based on the congressional grant,
in 28 U.S.C. § 1257, of appellate jurisdiction over state court
judgments to the United States Supreme Court and the grant of
original jurisdiction over certain suits to United States district courts.
Read together, these statutes indicate that the Supreme Court’s
appellate jurisdiction over state court judgments is exclusive and the
jurisdiction of the federal district courts is purely original.” 3

        The Supreme Court has explained that Rooker-Feldman bars “a
party losing in state court ... from seeking what in substance would
be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district
court.” Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06 (1994). But the
Court    has    emphasized     “the       narrow   ground   occupied    by
Rooker-Feldman,” noting that the doctrine applies in “limited
circumstances.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284, 291. The Court has held
that Rooker-Feldman “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.” Id. at 284. 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.

2 See Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); D.C. Ct. of Appeals v.
Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983).
3 Allison B. Jones, Note, The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine: What Does It Mean to
Be Inextricably Intertwined?, 56 Duke L.J. 643, 644-45 (2006) (footnotes
omitted).

                                      8
       The Court meant what it said. It subsequently reiterated that
“Rooker-Feldman is not simply preclusion by another name” but
“applies only in limited circumstances where a party in effect seeks to
take an appeal of an unfavorable state-court decision to a lower
federal court.” Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 466 (2006) (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). And the Court has “warned
that the lower courts have at times extended Rooker-Feldman ‘far
beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases, overriding
Congress’ conferral of federal-court jurisdiction concurrent with
jurisdiction exercised by state courts, and superseding the ordinary
application of preclusion law pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1738.’” Id. at 464
(quoting Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 283). 4 The Court has been so
emphatic on this point that Justice Stevens believed it had “finally
interred the so-called ‘Rooker-Feldman doctrine’” and had rejected the
“resuscitation of a doctrine that has produced nothing but mischief
for 23 years.” Lance, 546 U.S. at 468 (Stevens, J., dissenting). 5

4 See also Behr v. Campbell, 8 F.4th 1206, 1212 (11th Cir. 2021) (“[D]istrict
courts should keep one thing in mind when Rooker-Feldman is raised: it will
almost never apply.”); Stephen I. Vladeck, The Increasingly “Unflagging
Obligation”: Federal Jurisdiction After Saudi Basic and Anna Nicole, 42 Tulsa L.
Rev. 553, 566 (2007) (“Rooker-Feldman ... is an incredibly narrow exception
to federal jurisdiction, applying only to lawsuits that are inescapably
tantamount to appeals by state-court losers.”).
5 Commentators agreed with that assessment. See, e.g., Samuel Bray, Rooker
Feldman (1923-2006), 9 Green Bag 2d 317, 317 (2006) (“Rooker Feldman, the
legal personality, died yesterday at his home in Washington, D.C. He was
83.”) (footnote omitted) (citing Lance, 546 U.S. at 466); Suzanna Sherry, Logic
Without Experience: The Problem of Federal Appellate Courts, 82 Notre Dame L.
Rev. 97, 121 (2006) (“One commentator has wittily—but probably
accurately—provided an obituary for Rooker-Feldman.”) (citing Bray, supra).

                                       9
       Despite the Supreme Court’s “efforts to return Rooker-Feldman
to its modest roots,” however, “lawyers continue to invoke the rule
and judges continue to dismiss federal actions under it” beyond the
modest circumstances in which it applies. Vanderkodde v. Mary Jane M.
Elliott, P.C., 951 F.3d 397, 405 (6th Cir. 2020) (Sutton, J., concurring). 6
In our circuit, we have articulated a four-part test according to which
Rooker-Feldman applies if “(1) the federal-court plaintiff lost in state
court; (2) the plaintiff complains of injuries caused by a state court
judgment; (3) the plaintiff invites review and rejection of that
judgment; and (4) the state judgment was rendered before the district
court proceedings commenced.” Vossbrinck v. Accredited Home Lenders,
Inc., 773 F.3d 423, 426 (2d Cir. 2014) (internal quotation marks and
alterations omitted). We employ that test while keeping in mind the
Supreme Court’s warning that courts must avoid extending
Rooker-Feldman beyond the narrow circumstances in which it properly
applies.

       Here, we conclude that Rooker-Feldman does not bar Hunter’s
lawsuit for two reasons. First, the state-court judgment was not
“rendered” for Rooker-Feldman purposes “before the district court
proceedings commenced” because an appeal remained pending in
the state case when Hunter filed her federal suit. Second, at least some
of Hunter’s claims would not implicate Rooker-Feldman even if the
state proceedings had ended before Hunter filed her federal suit.

6  See also Hadzi-Tanovic v. Johnson, 62 F.4th 394, 410 (7th Cir. 2023) (Kirsch,
J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) (“Despite Exxon’s command
to rein in Rooker-Feldman, our circuit’s application of the doctrine has only
grown.”).

                                      10
                                      A

       We have not previously decided whether Rooker-Feldman
applies to a federal lawsuit when a state-court appeal remains
pending. 7 Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Exxon Mobil,
however, “every federal circuit court that has addressed the issue has
held that Rooker-Feldman does not apply if a state-court appeal is
pending when the federal suit is filed.” Hansen v. Miller, 52 F.4th 96,
103 (2d Cir. 2022) (Menashi, J., concurring). 8 Our court has also

7 See Butcher v. Wendt, 975 F.3d 236, 244 n.5 (2d Cir. 2020) (“We have never
addressed whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies where, as here,
there is a pending state appeal.”).
8  See Miller v. Dunn, 35 F.4th 1007, 1012 (5th Cir. 2022) (“Rooker-Feldman is
inapplicable where a state appeal is pending when the federal suit is
filed.”); Malhan v. Sec’y U.S. Dep’t of State, 938 F.3d 453, 460 (3d Cir. 2019)
(“Rooker-Feldman does not apply when state proceedings have neither
ended nor led to orders reviewable by the United States Supreme Court.”);
Parker v. Lyons, 757 F.3d 701, 706 (7th Cir. 2014) (“Rooker-Feldman does not
bar the claims of federal-court plaintiffs who … file a federal suit when a
state-court appeal is pending.”), overruled on other grounds, Hadzi-Tanovic, 62
F.4th at 402; Nicholson v. Shafe, 558 F.3d 1266, 1279 (11th Cir. 2009) (“[S]tate
proceedings have not ended for purposes of Rooker-Feldman when an appeal
from the state court judgment remains pending at the time the plaintiff
commences the federal court action.”); Guttman v. Khalsa, 446 F.3d 1027,
1032 (10th Cir. 2006) (“Guttman filed his federal suit while his petition for
certiorari to the New Mexico Supreme Court was pending. His state suit
was not final. As such, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar his federal
suit and the district court does have subject matter jurisdiction to hear the
case.”); Dornheim v. Sholes, 430 F.3d 919, 923 (8th Cir. 2005) (“[T]he
Rooker/Feldman doctrine precludes federal district court jurisdiction only if
the federal suit is commenced after the state court proceedings have ended.
There is no judgment to review if suit is filed in federal district court prior
to completion of the state-court action.”) (citations omitted); Mothershed v.
Justs. of the Sup. Ct., 410 F.3d 602, 604 n.1 (9th Cir. 2005) (“In Exxon Mobil,
the Supreme Court clarified that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is only

                                      11
suggested that is the correct approach. 9 In resolving this question,
therefore, we “adopt the unanimous position of every other circuit

operative where a federal suit is initiated after state court proceedings have
ended. Proceedings end for Rooker-Feldman purposes when the state courts
finally resolve the issue that the federal court plaintiff seeks to relitigate in
a federal forum.”) (citation omitted); Federación de Maestros de P.R. v. Junta
de Relaciones del Trabajo de P.R., 410 F.3d 17, 24-25 (1st Cir. 2005) (holding
that “the state proceedings have ‘ended’” for Rooker-Feldman purposes if
“the highest state court in which review is available has affirmed the
judgment below and nothing is left to be resolved,” “if the state action has
reached a point where neither party seeks further action,” or “if the state
court proceedings have finally resolved all the federal questions in the
litigation, but state law or purely factual questions … remain to be
litigated”).
9  See Green v. Mattingly, 585 F.3d 97, 103 (2d Cir. 2009) (noting that “the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine would likely apply” if a plaintiff brought suit in
federal court “at the completion of her appeals” in state court); see also
Thomas v. Martin-Gibbons, 857 F. App’x 36, 38 & n.2 (2d Cir. 2021) (applying
Rooker-Feldman because “the plaintiffs filed the present action” after the
time to appeal the state-court decision had expired, “[t]he record does not
indicate that the plaintiffs timely appealed the family court decision, and
therefore it appears that the state-court proceedings had ended”); Powell v.
Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, 840 F. App’x 610, 612 (2d Cir. 2020) (holding that
the “requirements of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine were satisfied” because
the plaintiffs “filed this federal lawsuit … after [their] time to appeal the
[state-court] judgment had passed”); Borrani v. Nationstar Mortg. LLC, 820
F. App’x 20, 22 (2d Cir. 2020) (holding that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
applied because the federal suit was filed after the “thirty-day deadline for
appeal” of the state-court judgment). We have also relied on cases from
other circuits that endorse this approach to deciding “whether ‘the state
proceedings have “ended” within the meaning of Rooker-Feldman.’” Hoblock,
422 F.3d at 89 (quoting Federación, 410 F.3d at 25); see also Malhan, 938 F.3d
at 459 (including the Second Circuit among those that have “cited Federacion
with approval”); Guttman, 446 F.3d at 1032 (including the Second Circuit
among those courts that have held “Rooker-Feldman applies only to suits
filed after state proceedings are final”).

                                       12
court to address it.” Butcher, 975 F.3d at 246 (Menashi, J., concurring
in part and concurring in the judgment).

       The Supreme Court has emphasized that Rooker-Feldman
deprives a federal court of jurisdiction only if the federal suit is filed
“after the state proceedings ended.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 291. If a
federal-court plaintiff’s state-court appeal remains pending when she
files her federal suit, the state-court proceedings have not ended and
Rooker-Feldman does not apply. Under such circumstances, the
plaintiff’s federal suit does not function as an appeal from the state-
court judgment, and consideration of the federal suit does not
interfere with Supreme Court review of “[f]inal judgments or decrees
rendered by the highest court of a State.” 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a); see
Dornheim, 430 F.3d at 923 (“There is no judgment to review if suit is
filed in federal district court prior to completion of the state-court
action.”).

       We    agree    with    those    circuits   that   have    held    that
“Rooker-Feldman does not apply when state proceedings have neither
ended nor led to orders reviewable by the United States Supreme
Court.” Malhan, 938 F.3d at 460. The state-court proceedings must
either have reached finality or yielded an order that satisfies “the
exceptions to the finality requirement that were set out in Cox
Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975),” so as to trigger the
exclusive appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. ASARCO Inc.
v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 612 (1989). 10 Simply stated, “[p]roceedings end
for Rooker-Feldman purposes when the state courts finally resolve the

10 See Mothershed, 410 F.3d at 604 n.1 (“A state supreme court’s interlocutory
ruling will therefore trigger the Rooker-Feldman doctrine’s applicability
where such ruling constitutes the final determination of an issue.”).

                                      13
issue that the federal court plaintiff seeks to relitigate in a federal
forum.” Mothershed, 410 F.3d at 604 n.1.

       If the rule were otherwise, it would not be possible to tell
whether the plaintiff in federal court was the loser in state court. In
this case, for example, two months after the district court dismissed
Hunter’s complaint, a New York appellate court reversed the state-
court order terminating Hunter’s parental rights. See Matter of Calvin
L.W. (Dominique H.), 196 A.D.3d 1181 (N.Y. App. Div. 4th Dep’t 2021).
While the state proceedings were ongoing, the district court could not
conclusively determine that Hunter was “the losing party in state
court.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 291.

       The defendants concede that Hunter’s state-court appeal was
pending when she filed her federal lawsuit. Because federal courts
“assess[] jurisdiction … as of the moment the complaint was filed,”
E.R. Squibb & Sons, 241 F.3d at 163, that is the end of the
Rooker-Feldman inquiry. The state proceedings remained ongoing
when Hunter filed her federal complaint, so Rooker-Feldman does not
apply. 11

11  We note that the district court would not lose jurisdiction if the state
proceedings were resolved while the federal suit remained pending. See
Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 292 (“[N]either Rooker nor Feldman supports the
notion that properly invoked concurrent jurisdiction vanishes if a state
court reaches judgment on the same or related question while the case
remains sub judice in a federal court.”); id. at 294 (“Rooker-Feldman did not
prevent the District Court from exercising jurisdiction when ExxonMobil
filed the federal action, and it did not emerge to vanquish jurisdiction after
ExxonMobil prevailed in the Delaware courts.”) (emphasis added); cf. id. at 294
n.9 (“The Court of Appeals criticized ExxonMobil for pursuing its federal
suit as an ‘insurance policy’ against an adverse result in state court. There
is nothing necessarily inappropriate, however, about filing a protective
action.”) (citation omitted).

                                      14
                                   B

      Even if the state proceedings in this case had reached finality,
the district court still would have erred because it “misperceived the
narrow ground occupied by Rooker-Feldman.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at
284. The district court determined that it could not consider any of
Hunter’s claims “because those claims either already have been
decided by the Family Court or are ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the
claims already decided by the Family Court.” Hunter, 2021 WL
1996772, at *3 (alteration omitted). Yet Rooker-Feldman applies only
when “the plaintiff complains of injuries caused by a state court
judgment,” Vossbrinck, 773 F.3d at 426 (internal quotation marks and
alteration omitted), and not all of Hunter’s alleged injuries were so
caused.

      We have said that this part of the Rooker-Feldman inquiry “is the
‘core requirement from which the other Rooker-Feldman requirements
derive.’” Sung Cho v. City of New York, 910 F.3d 639, 646 (2d Cir. 2018)
(alterations omitted) (quoting Hoblock, 422 F.3d at 87). In applying this
requirement, “[t]he following formula guides our inquiry: a federal
suit complains of injury from a state-court judgment, even if it
appears to complain only of a third party’s actions, when the third
party’s actions are produced by a state-court judgment and not simply
ratified, acquiesced in, or left unpunished by it.” Hoblock, 422 F.3d at
88 (emphasis added).

      Accordingly, “[o]ur court has further determined that
Rooker-Feldman does not bar claims based on an opponent’s
misconduct that precedes the state court proceeding, if the plaintiffs’
alleged injuries were merely ratified by the state-court judgments
rather than caused by them.” Dorce v. City of New York, 2 F.4th 82, 104
(2d Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted and emphasis

                                   15
added). 12 As the Supreme Court has explained, “[i]f a federal plaintiff
presents some independent claim, albeit one that denies a legal
conclusion that a state court has reached in a case to which he was a
party, then there is jurisdiction and state law determines whether the
defendant prevails under principles of preclusion.” Exxon Mobil, 544
U.S. at 293 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

       The notions of “inextricably intertwined” or “independent”
claims “are simply descriptive labels attached to claims that either do
or do not meet the requirements outlined in Exxon Mobil, and
therefore they do not have substantive content independent of the
four Exxon Mobil requirements.” McKithen v. Brown, 481 F.3d 89, 97
n.7 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks, alterations, and citation
omitted). Thus, “if the requirements outlined in Exxon Mobil are met,
then the claim asserted in federal court is ‘inextricably intertwined’
with the claim raised in state court.” Id. There is no separate inquiry
into whether a claim is “inextricably intertwined.” 13 As the Seventh
Circuit has explained:

       If a contention in federal litigation is intertwined with the
       state litigation only in the sense that it entails a factual or

12 Cf. Hansen, 52 F.4th at 100 (“[T]he doctrine generally does not affect a
federal court’s jurisdiction over claims for damages against third parties for
alleged misconduct occurring in the course of a state court proceeding,
because the adjudication of such claims would ‘not require the federal court
to sit in review of the state court judgment.’”) (quoting Vossbrinck, 773 F.3d
at 427).
13 See Behr, 8 F.4th at 1212 (“[C]onsidering whether a claim is ‘inextricably
intertwined’ with a state court judgment is not a second prong of the
analysis.”); Sherry, supra note 5, at 121 (noting that in Exxon Mobil, “[t]he
Court also appeared to abandon the ‘inextricably intertwined’ part of the
doctrine”).

                                     16
       legal contention that was, or could have been, presented
       to the state judge, then the connection between the state
       and federal cases concerns the rules of preclusion, which
       are not jurisdictional and are outside the scope of the
       Rooker-Feldman       doctrine.     Because      the     phrase
       “inextricably intertwined” has the potential to blur this
       boundary, it should not be used as a ground of decision.

Milchtein v. Chisholm, 880 F.3d 895, 898 (7th Cir. 2018) (Easterbrook,
J.). For Rooker-Feldman purposes, we are looking for a “causal
relationship between the state-court judgment and the injury of which
the party complains in federal court.” McKithen, 481 F.3d at 98.

       At least some of Hunter’s claims do not satisfy this causal-
relationship requirement. For example, Hunter alleges that some of
the defendants conspired—before any decisions were issued by the
family court—to discriminate against her on the basis of race, to
conduct unlawful searches and seizures, and to defame her, among
other claims. See Supp. App’x 14-15. Hunter alleges that McMahon
and Henderson took custody of C.W. on May 10 “under falsified
claims that an emergency existed” and conducted “an illegal
interrogation of [C.W.] in [Hunter’s] absence and without [her]
consent.” Id. at 11. Hunter claims that this conduct violated her
constitutional rights, and she seeks damages for that violation. 14 The
state-court judgment did not produce this alleged earlier-in-time
conduct, though it may have adjudicated the legitimacy of the

14 See, e.g., Supp. App’x 13 (alleging that “a parent has a constitutionally
protected ‘liberty’ interest in the custody of his/her children” and that “the
investigative interview of a child constitutes a ‘search and seizure’ and
when conducted on private property” without a warrant or admitting of
some other exception “is an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of
the constitutional rights of the parent”).

                                     17
conduct after the fact. The district court therefore did not lack subject
matter jurisdiction to evaluate Hunter’s claim. Instead, “the
connection between the state and federal cases concerns the rules of
preclusion, which are not jurisdictional and are outside the scope of
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.” Milchtein, 880 F.3d at 898. Even if the
state proceedings had ended by the time Hunter filed her federal suit,
the district court should not have allowed an expansive view of
Rooker-Feldman to “supersed[e] the ordinary application of preclusion
law.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 283.

                                     II

       The district court did not grant Hunter leave to amend her
complaint and it denied her motion for a second extension of time to
serve additional defendants. These decisions were, at least in part,
based on the district court’s erroneous conclusion that Rooker-Feldman
deprived it of subject matter jurisdiction over the case. See Hunter,
2021 WL 1996772, at *3 (“Because this Court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction over Hunter’s claims, it also agrees … that leave to amend
should be denied.”); id. at *4 (“Because this Court does not have
subject matter jurisdiction over Hunter’s claims, the Court dismisses,
sua sponte, the amended complaint against [the additional
defendants].”). Accordingly, we vacate those decisions of the district
court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion. 15

15 The defendants ask us to affirm the judgment of the district court on
alternative grounds on which the district court did not rely. See Hunter, 2021
WL 1996772, at *3 n.5 (“[B]ecause this Court lacks jurisdiction, it will not
reach those issues.”). “[M]indful that we are a court of review, not of first
view,” we decline to consider those arguments for the first time on appeal.

                                     18
                             CONCLUSION

      We reverse the judgment of the district court insofar as it
dismissed Hunter’s complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction
pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We vacate the judgment
insofar as the district court denied Hunter’s motions for leave to
amend and for additional time to serve defendants. We remand for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718 n.7 (2005). The defendants may direct
those arguments to the district court in the first instance.

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