Wood v. Orange County, 81-6176

• Citation: 715 F.2d 1543
• Decision Date: 30 September 1983
• Docket Number: No. 81-6176,81-6176
• Parties: Beatrice S. WOOD and Sandra Surburg Ritter, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ORANGE COUNTY and Kenneth Kienth, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

Page 1543

715 F.2d 1543

Beatrice S. WOOD and Sandra Surburg Ritter, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. ORANGE COUNTY and Kenneth Kienth, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 81-6176.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Sept. 30, 1983.

Philip H. Trees, Orlando, Fla., for defendants-appellants.

Larry Morgan, Greater Orlando Area Legal Services, Orlando, Fla., for plaintiffs-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Before GODBOLD, Chief Judge, RONEY, Circuit Judge, and PITTMAN ^*, District Judge.

GODBOLD, Chief Judge:

This suit arises out of liens entered against plaintiffs Sandra Ritter and Beatrice Wood in Florida courts, and pursuant to a Florida statute, for the value of legal services provided them in criminal cases by a state public defender. Plaintiffs allege that the liens were entered in violation of their due process rights; defendants Orange County and Kenneth Kienth, comptroller of Orange County, seek to enforce the liens.

We must decide in this interlocutory appeal whether the district court has subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs' suit. The district court denied defendants' motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction but, noting a conflict in the governing precedent, certified the jurisdictional question for interlocutory appeal. We hold that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction and remand.

Plaintiffs were defendants in separate criminal cases brought in the state courts of Orange County, Florida. The court adjudged plaintiffs insolvent in each case and appointed an attorney from the Orange County public defender's office to represent plaintiffs. Plaintiffs signed affidavits of insolvency containing a waiver clause, which informed plaintiffs of the possibility that a lien would be impressed against their property for the value of services rendered by the public defender. A Florida statute provides that the person against whom the lien is sought shall have notice, appointed counsel, an opportunity to be heard, and other procedural rights, see Fla.Stat.Ann. § 27.56(7) (West Supp.1983), but the waiver stated that plaintiffs waived notice of any lien proceedings.

After the criminal cases were over, the court entered liens against Wood and Ritter for $100 and $211 respectively. Neither plaintiff had notice of or participated in the lien proceedings. Plaintiffs allege that they first received notice of the liens many months later when contacted by a collection agency employed by Orange County. Thereafter plaintiffs filed suit in federal district court alleging due process violations and requesting injunctive and declaratory relief.

Defendants vigorously contend that the district court has no subject matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs' suit, citing Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), and a long line of Fifth Circuit precedent holding that a federal district court has no jurisdiction to review a state court judgment. According to defendants, plaintiffs had an opportunity to raise constitutional objections to the lien procedure at several stages of state proceedings. The state court proceedings, they argue, are thus dispositive of plaintiffs' constitutional claims, and the plaintiffs' sole federal recourse was to ask the United States Supreme Court to review the state decisions creating the liens.

In Rooker the parties first litigated their dispute in Indiana courts. After the Indiana Supreme Court issued its decision and the United States Supreme Court denied review, one of the parties filed suit in federal district court, arguing that the state decision rested on an unconstitutional state statute. Addressing the issue of the federal district court's subject matter jurisdiction, the unanimous Court held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to correct errors of federal law allegedly made by state courts in the exercise of their jurisdiction. Id. at 415, 44 S.Ct. at 150. The Court identified two statutory bases for its decision. First, it noted that it has exclusive authority to review decisions of a state supreme court for alleged errors of federal law. Id. at 416, 44 S.Ct. at 150; see 28 U.S.C. § 1257 (1976). Second, the Court reasoned that the requirement that the district court exercise "original" jurisdiction prevents the district court from, in effect, reviewing state court decisions. Id. at 416, 44 S.Ct. at 150; see 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (Supp. V 1981). See generally Chang, Rediscovering the Rooker Doctrine: Section 1983, Res Judicata and the Federal Courts, 31 Hastings L.J. 1337, 1346 (1980).

Consistent with Rooker, a long line of former Fifth Circuit cases has held that federal district courts have no jurisdiction to review, overturn, or modify state court judgments. See, e.g., Kimball v. Florida Bar, 632 F.2d 1283 (5th Cir.1980); Lampkin-Asam v. Supreme Court, 601 F.2d 760 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1013, 100 S.Ct. 662, 62 L.Ed.2d 642 (1980); Sawyer v. Overton, 595 F.2d 252 (5th Cir.1979); Brown v. Chastain, 416 F.2d 1012 (5th Cir.1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 951, 90 S.Ct. 976, 25 L.Ed.2d 134 (1970).

In Gresham Park Community Organization v. Howell, 652 F.2d 1227 (5th Cir.1981) (Unit B), the former Fifth Circuit qualified the scope of Rooker and rejected much of its progeny. The court discussed several Supreme Court cases in which the Court implicitly held that the district court had jurisdiction despite the fact that Rooker would have precluded jurisdiction. Id. at 1234. The court also identified a line of Fifth Circuit cases in conflict with the cases cited above that follow Rooker. Id. at 1234-35. It resolved the conflict by rejecting the broad proposition, expressed in these latter cases, that the federal district courts have no jurisdiction to entertain a claim made by a losing party in state court that would nullify or modify the state court decision. Id. at 1235-36. Further, Gresham reinterpreted Rooker to stand only for the truism that federal district courts cannot exercise jurisdiction where federal question or diversity of citizenship jurisdiction is lacking. Id. at 1236.

Gresham's limiting interpretation of Rooker was shortlived. While normally we would be bound by Gresham, the Supreme Court's intervening decision in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983), breathed new life into the Rooker doctrine as traditionally conceived. In Feldman plaintiffs filed petitions with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, seeking waiver of the D.C. bar's requirement that members graduate from accredited law schools. In each case the D.C. Court of Appeals, the equivalent of the highest court of a state, denied the petition. The plaintiffs then brought suit in federal district court, challenging as a violation of federal law the D.C. Court of Appeals' refusal to waive the accreditation requirement.

In determining whether the federal district court had subject matter jurisdiction, the Supreme Court cited Rooker for the proposition that "a United States District Court has no authority to review final judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings. Review of such judgments may be had only in this Court." Id. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1311, 1314, 75 L.Ed.2d at 218, 222 (citing Rooker, 263 U.S. at 415, 416, 44 S.Ct. at 150). Applying this general principle to the case before it, the Court distinguished between plaintiffs' challenge to the accreditation rule as applied to them and their general attack on its constitutionality. Id. at ---- - ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1315-16, 75 L.Ed.2d at 223-24. It held that the federal district court had no jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' allegation that the D.C. Court of Appeals had arbitrarily denied their waiver petitions. Id. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1316-17, 75 L.Ed.2d at 225. It characterized the court of appeals' decision as judicial and stated that the plaintiffs' allegation was "inextricably intertwined" with that court's decision. Id. By assuming jurisdiction over this allegation, the Court explained, the district court would be "review[ing] a final judicial decision of the highest court of a jurisdiction in a particular case." Id. In contrast, the Court held that the district court could properly assume jurisdiction over the plaintiffs' broadside challenge to the constitutionality of the accreditation requirement because this general challenge did not "require review of a judicial decision in a particular case." Id. at ---- - ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1316-1317, 75 L.Ed.2d at 225-26. ¹

Feldman forthrightly reaffirms the validity of Rooker. It reminds the lower federal courts that, because federal review of state court decisions is entrusted solely to the Supreme Court, they may not decide federal issues that are raised in state proceedings and "inextricably intertwined" with the state court's judgment. Id. at ----, 103 S.Ct. at 1316-17, 75 L.Ed.2d at 225. Feldman, moreover, indicates that the Rooker bar also operates where the plaintiff fails to raise his federal claims in state court. In a footnote the Court rejected a Fifth Circuit case holding that Rooker applies only to issues actually raised, id. at ---- n. 16, 103 S.Ct. at 1315 n. 16, 75 L.Ed.2d at 223 n. 16 (rejecting Dasher v. Supreme Court, 658 F.2d 1045 (5th Cir.1981) (Unit A)). The Court stated: "By failing to raise his claims in state court a plaintiff may forfeit his right to obtain review of the state court decision in any federal court." --- U.S. at ---- n. 16, 103 S.Ct. at 1315 n. 16, 75 L.Ed.2d at 223 n. 16. Although at first blush the Court's apparent endorsement of the rule that a federal district court may not assume jurisdiction over issues that the plaintiff failed to present to state courts supports defendants' position in this case, there is an important limitation on this rule. The rule can apply only where the plaintiff had a...