Jackson v. Office of the Mayor of the Dist. of Columbia

• Citation: 911 F.3d 1167
• Decision Date: 28 December 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-7056,17-7056
• Parties: Clarence JACKSON, Appellant v. OFFICE OF THE MAYOR OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA and District of Columbia Court of Appeals Admissions Committee, Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

911 F.3d 1167

Clarence JACKSON, Appellant
v.
OFFICE OF THE MAYOR OF the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA and District of Columbia Court of Appeals Admissions Committee, Appellees

No. 17-7056

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued November 6, 2018
Decided December 28, 2018

Sarah G. Boyce, Washington, DC, appointed by the court, argued the cause on behalf of the amicus curiae in support of the appellant. Chad I. Golder, Washington, DC, appointed by the court, was with her on brief.

Clarence Jackson, pro se, was on brief for the appellant.

Lucy E. Pittman, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause for the appellees. Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor General, and Caroline S. Van Zile, Deputy Solicitor General, were with her on brief.

Before: Henderson, Griffith and Wilkins, Circuit Judges.

Karen LeCraft Henderson, Circuit Judge:

911 F.3d 1169

In 2010, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Committee on Admissions ("Committee") denied Clarence Jackson’s application to sit for the D.C. Bar Examination ("Bar"). Since then, Jackson has challenged that decision and, in turn, the handling of his challenge. His case reached the federal district court in 2016. The district court dismissed his complaint based on three alternative doctrines: the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the Younger abstention doctrine and the doctrine of res judicata . Because none of the three doctrines applies, we reverse.

I.

Clarence Jackson sat unsuccessfully for the Bar four times. In 2010, he applied to sit a fifth time. He failed to pay the required fees or to provide proof of law school graduation and the Committee denied his application.

Five years later, Jackson sued the Committee in the D.C. Superior Court ("State Complaint"). He alleged that the denial of his application violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, constituted a breach of contract and resulted in the intentional infliction of emotional distress. On April 1, 2016, the Superior Court granted without explanation the Committee’s motion to dismiss the State Complaint.

On or around April 5, 2016, Jackson submitted a petition to the D.C. Mayor’s Office in an apparent attempt to seek review of the decision denying him a further opportunity to take the bar exam. The Mayor’s Office denied his petition on the ground that he had already filed a lawsuit making the same claim. Jackson then petitioned for review in the D.C. Court of Appeals, but his petition was denied as untimely.

On April 7, 2016, Jackson asked the Superior Court to explain why it dismissed the State Complaint. The request remained pending for more than one year.

In the interim, Jackson filed the instant complaint ("Federal Complaint"). This time Jackson sued both the Committee and the Mayor’s Office ("Defendants"). He alleged that the denial of his application and the rejection of his challenge to that denial violated the Sixth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments,¹ as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. He also reasserted

911 F.3d 1170

his breach of contract and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims and asserted a claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress. In March 2017, the district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Federal Complaint. The district court construed the Federal Complaint as a suit against the District and characterized the claims contained therein as "effectively the same as those advanced [in the State Complaint]." It then identified three alternative grounds in dismissing the Federal Complaint: the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the Younger abstention doctrine and the doctrine of res judicata .

In June 2017, the Committee asked the Superior Court to resolve Jackson’s request that the court explain its decision to dismiss the State Complaint. In July 2017, the Superior Court stated that it had not ruled on the request over the previous fifteen months because it believed its earlier decision was "a final adjudication" and that "the matter was closed." It clarified that it had dismissed the State Complaint "for many reasons," including its "lack[ ] [of] subject-matter jurisdiction over this action." See Kennedy v. Educ. Testing Serv., Inc. , 393 A.2d 523, 525 (D.C. 1978) (D.C. Court of Appeals has exclusive jurisdiction over challenges to bar application denials).

Jackson timely appealed the district court’s dismissal of the Federal Complaint. We review each alternative ground of the district court’s decision de novo . S...