Behr v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 12 August 2021
• Docket Number: No. 18-12842,18-12842
• Citation: 8 F.4th 1206
• Parties: Rebekka Anne BEHR, Louis H. Behr, J.B., minor child, by and through Father, Louis H. Behr, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. James CAMPBELL, individually and in his official position as principal for PBCSD, Palm Beach County School District, c/o Dr. AV6OSSO, Superintendent, Melissa K. Brooks, individually and as natural birth mother, Patricia Franklin, individually, Sandra Seder, individually and as lawyer, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

8 F.4th 1206

Rebekka Anne BEHR, Louis H. Behr, J.B., minor child, by and through Father, Louis H. Behr, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.James CAMPBELL, individually and in his official position as principal for PBCSD, Palm Beach County School District, c/o Dr. AV6OSSO, Superintendent, Melissa K. Brooks, individually and as natural birth mother, Patricia Franklin, individually, Sandra Seder, individually and as lawyer, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 18-12842

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

August 12, 2021

Rachel Ann Oostendorp, Carlton Fields, MIAMI, FL, for Plaintiffs - Appellants Rebekka Anne Behr, Louis H. Behr

Brion Blackwelder, Nova Southeastern University, Shepard Broad College of Law-Children and Families Law Clinic, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff - Appellant J.B., minor child, by and through Father, Louis H. Behr

Sean Fahey, School District of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, FL, Jon Erick Bell, The School District of Palm Beach County, Office of General Counsel, West Palm Beach, FL, for Defendant - Appellee James Campbell

Sean Fahey, Shawntoyia N. Bernard, School District of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, FL, Jon Erick Bell, The School District of Palm Beach County, Office of General Counsel, West Palm Beach, FL, for Defendant - Appellee Palm Beach County School District, c/o Dr. AV6OSSO, Superintendent

Before WILSON, GRANT, and TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges.

GRANT, Circuit Judge:

Though one might not always know it from reading federal cases, Rooker - Feldman is a narrow jurisdictional doctrine. It simply establishes that a party who loses a case in state court cannot appeal that loss in a federal district court. This is a straightforward enough rule, and the Supreme Court has held the line without hesitation for nearly a century. But the story has been different in the lower courts—our application of Rooker - Feldman has been unrestrained to say the least, sometimes leading to dismissal of any claim that even touches on a previous state court action. Though the Supreme Court has stepped in to restore the doctrine to its original boundaries, courts have continued to apply Rooker - Feldman as a one-size-fits-all preclusion doctrine for a vast array of claims relating to state court litigation.

This case is a prime example. After a difficult series of child custody interventions and state proceedings, Louis Behr and two of his children filed a 30-count pro se complaint in federal district court asserting a wide variety of constitutional, statutory, and tort claims against 18 named defendants. The district court, seeing that the claims were related to the Behrs’ earlier state court litigation, dismissed the entire complaint on Rooker - Feldman grounds.

That kind of sweeping dismissal is not at all unusual—but it is also at odds with the Supreme Court's clearly articulated description of Rooker - Feldman . Our own review of the complaint shows that several of the claims the Behrs raised do not fall within that doctrine's narrow bounds. The district court may ultimately have reason to dismiss them, but not on Rooker - Feldman grounds. That doctrine's era of expansion is over.

I.

Louis Behr lost custody of two of his four children, Miracle and Casandra. Louis and his other two children, Rebekka and J.B., believe that a host of defendants—including Louis's ex-wife, her partner, an employee of Child Protective Services, the principal at Rebekka's school, the Palm Beach County School District, and the Palm Beach County Department of Children and Families, among others—conspired to deprive Louis of custody through state child custody proceedings. Louis, Rebekka, and J.B. filed a pro se complaint in state court, lodging a host of federal and state-law claims against these defendants.

Two defendants removed the case to federal court. The district court dismissed the case twice, but each time allowed the Behrs to file an amended complaint. The second amended complaint rounds out at 75 pages and contains 30 counts. Those counts include allegations that the defendants violated the Behrs’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and federal law in a number of ways—fabricating reports, pressuring the children to make false statements against their father, entering Louis's home without permission and on false pretenses, and discriminating against the Behrs on the basis of age, sex, disability, and religion. The Behrs also raise several state-law claims.

Just seven days after the complaint was filed, the district court sua sponte entered a five-page order dismissing the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Rooker - Feldman doctrine, it said, prevented it from reviewing the Behrs’ claims because they were "presented or adjudicated by a state court" or " ‘inextricably intertwined’ with a state court judgment." The district court concluded that the Behrs’ claims were, at bottom, "requesting the Court review the determinations by the state that caused two of [Louis's] children to be removed from his custody and determine that it was the product of falsified reports." It dismissed the entire complaint on that basis, with prejudice. The Behrs appeal that dismissal order.

II.

We review de novo the district court's determination that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction. Doe v. Fla. Bar , 630 F.3d 1336, 1340 (11th Cir. 2011).

III.

Case by case, over the course of several decades, our Circuit and others built Rooker - Feldman into a sweeping jurisdictional doctrine. We concluded that it was "broad enough" to bar federal courts’ consideration of "all federal claims which were, or should have been, central to the state court decision, even if those claims seek a form of relief that might not have been available from the state court." Goodman ex rel. Goodman v. Sipos , 259 F.3d 1327, 1333 (11th Cir. 2001). This included not only those "claims presented or adjudicated by a state court," but also claims that were " ‘inextricably intertwined’ with a state court judgment," effectively barring federal courts’ jurisdiction over all issues that seemed sufficiently related to an earlier state court case. Siegel v. LePore , 234 F.3d 1163, 1172 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Our inflated view of the doctrine, widely shared though it may have been, was actually a misunderstanding—one that the Supreme Court has stepped in to correct.

The Court's decision in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp. restored Rooker-Feldman to its original boundaries. 544 U.S. 280, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005). The doctrine occupies "narrow ground" and is "confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name"—that is, Rooker and Feldman . Id. at 284, 125 S.Ct. 1517 ; Rooker v. Fid. Tr. Co. , 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923) ; D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman , 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). Those cases held that state court litigants do not have a right of appeal in the lower federal courts; they cannot come to federal district courts "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."¹ Exxon Mobil , 544 U.S. at 284, 125 S.Ct. 1517.

As Exxon Mobil recognized, this rule follows naturally from the jurisdictional boundaries that Congress has set for the federal courts. First, federal district courts are courts of original jurisdiction—they generally cannot hear appeals. Id. at 291–92, 125 S.Ct. 1517 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1331 ). And second, only the Supreme Court can "reverse or modify" state court judgments; neither district courts nor the circuits can touch them. Id. at 283, 125 S.Ct. 1517 (citing 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) ); see also Tamiami Partners, Ltd. ex rel. Tamiami Dev. Corp. v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Fla. , 177 F.3d 1212, 1221 (11th Cir. 1999). Allowing federal district courts to alter or directly review the judgments of state courts would violate both of those jurisdictional grants. See Verizon Md. Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n , 535 U.S. 635, 644 n.3, 122 S.Ct. 1753, 152 L.Ed.2d 871 (2002).

That, though, is as far as Rooker - Feldman goes. Unlike many doctrines, it is not prudential—it is based explicitly on the statutory limitations of federal district courts’ jurisdiction. Only when a losing state court litigant calls on a district court to modify or "overturn an injurious state-court judgment" should a claim be dismissed under Rooker - Feldman ; district courts do not lose subject matter jurisdiction over a claim "simply because a party attempts to litigate in federal court a matter previously litigated in state court." Exxon Mobil , 544 U.S. at 292–93, 125 S.Ct. 1517. Nor is Rooker - Feldman "simply preclusion by another name." Lance v. Dennis , 546 U.S. 459, 466, 126 S.Ct. 1198, 163 L.Ed.2d 1059 (2006). To be sure, other doctrines of preclusion, abstention, or comity may still bar a plaintiff's claims—but they are separate and distinct from Rooker - Feldman ’s jurisdictional prohibition on appellate review of state court decisions in federal district courts. Exxon Mobil , 544 U.S. at 292, 125 S.Ct. 1517.

Exxon Mobil exposed the flaws in our significant expansion of Rooker - Feldman , and this Court got the message. In Nicholson v. Shafe , one of our first cases addressing the doctrine after Exxon Mobil , we recognized that the Supreme Court's opinion "clarified the scope of the Rooker - Feldman doctrine by returning it to its roots, the facts of the Rooker and Feldman cases." 558 F.3d 1266, 1274 (11th Cir. 2009). In response, we abandoned the four-factor test that had previously guided this Circuit's application of Rooker - Feldman . See id. at 1273–74. We chose instead to "adhere to the language in Exxon Mobil , delineating the boundaries of the Rooker - Feldman doctrine." Id . at 1274.

Nicholson set down the right markers, and in our subsequent Rooker - Feldman cases we have stayed the course, asking whether the claims raised...