Shooting Point, L.L.C. v. Cumming

• Decision Date: 14 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-1120.,03-1120.
• Citation: 368 F.3d 379
• Parties: SHOOTING POINT, L.L.C.; Lemoin B. Cree, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Marlene Cree, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Nicole Killebrew, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Montaigne Cree, in individual capacity both as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C., as well as contract owner of real property lots situated in Shooting Point; L. Barrett Cree, in individual capacity both as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C., as well as contract owner of real property lots situated in Shooting Point; Shooting Point Property Owners Association, Incorporated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. W.M. CUMMING, Jr., Resident Engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation for Northampton County, Virginia, in his individual and/or personal capacity only; John W. Wescoat; Suzanne Wescoat; John W. Wescoat, Jr.; Curtis H. Jones, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

368 F.3d 379

SHOOTING POINT, L.L.C.; Lemoin B. Cree, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Marlene Cree, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Nicole Killebrew, in individual capacity as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C.; Montaigne Cree, in individual capacity both as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C., as well as contract owner of real property lots situated in Shooting Point; L. Barrett Cree, in individual capacity both as shareholder of Shooting Point, L.L.C., as well as contract owner of real property lots situated in Shooting Point; Shooting Point Property Owners Association, Incorporated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. W.M. CUMMING, Jr., Resident Engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation for Northampton County, Virginia, in his individual and/or personal capacity only; John W. Wescoat; Suzanne Wescoat; John W. Wescoat, Jr.; Curtis H. Jones, Jr., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-1120.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: January 22, 2004.

Decided: May 14, 2004.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: Andrew Michael Sacks, SACKS & SACKS, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellants. Alan Brody Rashkind, FURNISS, DAVIS, RASHKIND & SAUNDERS, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellees John W. Wescoat, Suzanne Wescoat, John W. Wescoat, Jr., Curtis H. Jones, Jr. James Christian Stuchell, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee W.M. Cumming, Jr. ON BRIEF: James A. Cales, III, FURNISS, DAVIS, RASHKIND & SAUNDERS, Norfolk, Virginia, for Appellees John W. Wescoat, Suzanne Wescoat, John W. Wescoat, Jr., Curtis H. Jones, Jr.

Before NIEMEYER, WILLIAMS, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion, in which Judge NIEMEYER and Judge WILLIAMS joined.

OPINION

GREGORY, Circuit Judge:

I.

Several individuals and entities that owned a parcel of land in the Tidewater area of Virginia brought a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the adjoining landowners and the local resident engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation ("VDOT") alleging violations of their federal civil and constitutional rights and asserting various state law claims. On Defendants' motion to dismiss, the district court dismissed the action and held that, inter alia, the court lacked jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine to entertain the landowner's § 1983 claims. Plaintiffs-Appellants ("Plaintiff(s)" or "Shooting Point") appeal the dismissal on Rooker-Feldman grounds. Because the case is essentially a residential land dispute and the federal issues are inextricably intertwined with those that the state court has already decided, we affirm.

II.

This case arises from a private property dispute in Northampton County, on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, between adjoining landowners with differing plans for the development of the land. Plaintiffs are individuals and entities that own a parcel of land, comprising roughly 176 acres, known as Shooting Point.¹ The Shooting Point property is surrounded by a 900-acre tract of land owned by Defendants John and Suzanne Wescoat (the "Wescoat property"). The Wescoat property is subject to a fifteen-foot-wide easement benefitting the Shooting Point property for the purpose of ingress and egress to state highway Route 622. The easement, granted by deed in 1974, is a non-exclusive easement to be used by both the servient and dominant tenements.

On December 29, 1999, Shooting Point recorded a plat, approved by Northampton County, which divided the Shooting Point development into eighteen separate parcels for sale to private property owners. Many of the lots have already been sold or placed under contract. According to Shooting Point's federal complaint, the Wescoats are unhappy with Plaintiffs' plans for the property and are attempting to restrict access to the easement, hoping to cause Plaintiffs to abandon the property and sell it to the Wescoats at a reduced price. They also allege that defendant W.M. Cumming ("Cumming"), the local Resident Engineer for VDOT, conspired with the Wescoats to require Shooting Point to obtain a commercial entrance permit when other similarly situated property owners had not been required to do so, and then deliberately delayed the issuance of the permit to purposefully interfere with the Shooting Point development.

After a series of private disputes, on February 16, 2000, the Wescoats filed suit in the Circuit Court of Northampton County, seeking to enjoin Plaintiffs' proposed use of Shooting Point. They argued that converting Shooting Point into a subdivision was not a reasonable use of the parcel; that the proposed use of Shooting Point would overburden the fifteen-foot-wide easement; and that, under Virginia law, such use of the easement required Shooting Point to obtain a commercial entrance permit. Notwithstanding those proceedings, Plaintiffs applied for a commercial entrance permit from Cumming, who they contend resisted issuing the permit, in bad faith, as long as possible. Ultimately, however, on August 14, 2000, Cumming issued Plaintiffs a permit for Shooting Point. Subsequently, the Wescoats filed a second state action, seeking a declaratory judgment that the permit was unlawfully issued because the regulation requirements were not satisfied.

The two suits were consolidated for trial. The state court determined: (1) that the easement existed; (2) the specific location of the easement; (3) that the use of Shooting Point as a subdivision would not overburden the easement; (4) that the commercial entrance permit regulation applied to the Shooting Point Subdivision; and (5) that the permit issued to Plaintiffs by Cumming was invalid as a matter of law because the road did not meet the statutory requirements for an entrance permit. Both parties appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia, which recently affirmed the judgment of the state trial court.²

Despite the pending appeal, on March 25, 2002, Plaintiffs filed the instant action in federal court, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, for alleged violations of their rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Count One alleges that all Defendants participated in a conspiracy to deprive Plaintiffs of their federal civil and constitutional rights. Counts Two through Five allege that defendant Cumming, in his individual capacity, deprived Plaintiffs of their rights to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, to just compensation under the Fifth Amendment, and to procedural and substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. Count Six alleges various supplemental state law claims arising out of the same incidents.

Defendants filed timely answers to the Complaint and also filed separate motions to dismiss and for judgment on the pleadings. The district court declined the parties' request for oral argument because the issues had been extensively, and exhaustively, briefed by all parties. On December 20, 2003, the district court issued its Memorandum Opinion and Final Order dismissing Plaintiffs' complaint in its entirety. Shooting Point, LLC v. Cumming, 238 F.Supp.2d 729 (E.D.Va.2002). Count One was dismissed under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim; Counts Two, Three and Four were dismissed on Rooker-Feldman grounds; Count Five was dismissed under Rule 12(b)(1) for failure to exhaust administrative remedies; and Count Six (the state law claims) was dismissed because the court declined to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction.³

Before this Court, Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal on Rooker-Feldman grounds only.

III.

The district court held that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars Shooting Point's suit, and our review of that ruling is de novo. Safety-Kleen, Inc. v. Wyche, 274 F.3d 846 (4th Cir.2001) (citing Guess v. Bd. of Med. Exam'rs, 967 F.2d 998, 1002 (4th Cir.1992)). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine holds that "lower federal courts generally do not have [subject-matter] jurisdiction to review state-court decisions." Id. at 875 (quoting Plyler v. Moore, 129 F.3d 728, 731 (4th Cir.1997) and citing D.C. Ct. of App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482-86, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923)). The Rooker-Feldman doctrine precludes federal "review of adjudications of the state's highest court [and] also the decisions of its lower courts." Jordahl v. Democratic Party, 122 F.3d 192, 199 (4th Cir.1997). The Rooker-Feldman bar extends not only to issues actually decided by a state court but also to those that are "inextricably intertwined with questions ruled upon by a state court." Plyler, 129 F.3d at 731 (internal quotation marks omitted). A federal claim is "inextricably intertwined" with a state court decision if "success on the federal claim depends upon a determination that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

"Under either the `actually decided' or the'inextricably intertwined' prong, the principle is the same: `[A] party losing in state court is barred from seeking what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district court, based on the losing party's claim that the state judgment itself violates the loser's federal rights.'" Brown & Root, Inc. v. Breckenridge, 211 F.3d 194, 199 (4th Cir.2000) (quoting Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994)). Thus, "if in order to grant the federal plaintiff the relief sought, the federal court must determine that the state court judgment was erroneously entered or must take action that would render the judgment ineffectual, Rooker-Feldman is implicated." Jordahl, 122 F.3d at 202 (internal punctuation omitted) (quoting Ernst v. Child and Youth Servs., 108 F.3d 486, 491 (3d Cir.1997)). Because federal jurisdiction to...