Petitioners Brief — T. M., Petitioner v. University of Maryland Medical System Corporation, et al.

Supreme Court briefJan 14, 2026

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No. 25-197

In the Supreme Court of the United States

T.M., PETITIONER

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

MEDICAL SYSTEM CORPORATION, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF FOR THE PETITIONER

RAY M. SHEPARD

SHEPARD LAW FIRM

122 Riviera Drive

Pasadena, MD 21122

KANNON K. SHANMUGAM

Counsel of Record

WILLIAM T. MARKS

ANNA J. LUCARDI

MATTHEW J. DISLER

MIKAELA MILLIGAN

KRISTA A. STAPLEFORD

PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND,

WHARTON & GARRISON LLP

2001 K Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 223-7300

kshanmugam@paulweiss.com

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine can be triggered by a state-court decision that remains subject to

further review in state court.

(I)

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

Petitioner is T.M.; her name was redacted in the proceedings below to protect her privacy. Respondents are

University of Maryland Medical System Corporation;

Baltimore Washington Medical Center Inc.; Kathleen

McCollum; and Thomas J. Cummings, Jr.

(II)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Opinions below ................................................................................ 1

Jurisdiction ...................................................................................... 1

Statutory provisions involved ....................................................... 2

Statement ......................................................................................... 3

A. Background ........................................................................ 6

B. Facts and procedural history ........................................... 9

Summary of argument ................................................................. 15

Argument ....................................................................................... 18

I. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine should not

extend to a state-court judgment subject to

further review in state court .......................................... 18

A. The Court has applied the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine only to the final decisions of state

courts of last resort................................................... 19

B. Extending the Rooker-Feldman doctrine

to non-final state-court decisions is

inconsistent with the doctrine’s statutory

basis ............................................................................ 28

C. There are compelling practical reasons

not to expand the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine to non-final state-court decisions ............ 35

II. In the alternative, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine

should be overruled ......................................................... 44

Conclusion ...................................................................................... 47

(III)

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page

Cases:

Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90 (1980) .................................. 42

Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023) .................................... 46

Ames v. Kansas ex rel. Johnston,

111 U. S. 449 (1884)........................................................... 44

Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006) ...................... 38

ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605 (1989) .............. 29-31

Biden v. Texas, 597 U.S. 785 (2022)..................................... 34

Blythe v. Hinckley, 173 U.S. 501 (1899) .............................. 22

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich

& Payne International Drilling Co.,

581 U.S. 170 (2017) ............................................................ 39

Bowe v. United States, No. 24-5348 (Jan. 9, 2026)............. 40

Caujolle v. Ferrié, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 465 (1871) ................ 22

Chicago & Alton Railroad Co. v. Wiggins Ferry Co.,

108 U.S. 18 (1883) .............................................................. 22

Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc.,

505 U.S. 504 (1992) ............................................................ 40

Colorado River Water Conservation District

v. United States, 424 U.S. 800 (1976) ................... 6, 42, 43

Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn,

420 U.S. 469 (1975) ............................................................ 30

Direct Marketing Association v. Brohl,

575 U.S. 1 (2015) .......................................................... 38, 39

District of Columbia Court of Appeals

v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983) ........ 3, 5, 7-9, 14-15, 17,

19-20, 23-29, 31-33,

35-36, 43, 45

Dodson v. University of Arkansas for Medical

Sciences, 601 F.3d 750 (11th Cir. 2010),

cert. denied, 562 U.S. 1135 (2011) ................................... 37

Doe v. University of Maryland Medical System

Corp., No. 24-1994, 2025 WL 3553026

(4th Cir. Dec. 11, 2025) ..................................................... 10

Page

Cases—continued:

Earle v. McVeigh, 91 U.S. 503 (1876) .................................. 33

Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries

Corp., 544 U.S. 280 (2005) ................... 3, 5, 8-9, 14-15, 17,

19-20, 23, 25-29,

34-37, 42-46

Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391 (1963) .......................................... 33

Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fikre,

601 U.S. 234 (2024) .............................................................. 6

Feldman v. Gardner,

661 F.2d 1295 (D.C. Cir. 1981) ........................................ 24

Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp.,

328 U.S. 275 (1946) ............................................................ 23

Forsyth v. Hammond, 166 U.S. 506 (1897) ........................ 22

Fort Bend County v. Davis, 587 U.S. 541 (2019) ............... 39

Gilbank v. Wood County Department of Human

Services, 111 F.4th 754 (7th Cir. 2024),

cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1167 (2025) ................................. 37

Great Western Mining & Mineral Co. v. Fox

Rothschild LLP, 615 F.3d 159 (3d Cir. 2010),

cert. denied, 563 U.S. 904 (2011) ..................................... 37

Griffith v. Bank of New York, 147 F.2d 899 (2d Cir.),

cert. denied, 325 U.S. 874 (1945) ..................................... 33

Growe v. Emison, 507 U.S. 25 (1993) .................................. 44

Hadzi-Tanovic v. Johnson,

62 F.4th 394 (7th Cir. 2023) ............................................. 37

Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services

of Chicago, 583 U.S. 17 (2017) ......................................... 39

Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs,

556 U.S. 163 (2009) ...................................................... 20, 29

Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S. 428 (2011)....................... 39

Herr v. United States Forest Service,

803 F.3d 809 (6th Cir. 2015) ............................................. 38

Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77 (2010)........................... 39

Hoblock v. Albany County Board of Elections,

422 F.3d 77 (2d Cir. 2008) ................................................ 37

Page

Cases—continued:

Hohn v. United States, 524 U.S. 236 (1998) ....................... 46

Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409 (1897) ................................... 33

Hunter v. McMahon, 75 F.4th 62 (2d Cir. 2023) ........... 9, 37

INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001) ...................................... 40

Janus v. State, County & Municipal Employees,

585 U.S. 878 (2018) ............................................................ 46

Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U.S. 75 (1997) ................ 30

Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997 (1994) ....................... 34

Kremer v. Chemical Construction Corp.,

456 U.S. 461 (1982) ............................................................ 43

Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459 (2006) ............... 8-9, 20, 28-29

36, 42, 45

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo,

603 U.S. 369 (2024) ............................................................ 45

Lucky Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashions

Group, Inc., 590 U.S. 405 (2020) ..................................... 41

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803) .......... 32

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc.

v. Manning, 578 U.S. 374 (2016) ..................................... 39

Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983) ............................... 6

Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden

State Bar Association, 457 U.S. 423 (1984)................... 43

O’Brien v. Hanover Insurance Co.,

692 N.E.2d 39 (Mass. 1998) ............................................. 41

Parsons Steel, Inc. v. First Alabama Bank,

474 U.S. 518 (1986) ............................................................ 42

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009) ........................... 46

Pierce County v. Guillen, 537 U.S. 129 (2003) ................... 30

Riley v. Bondi, 606 U.S. 259 (2025) ..................................... 39

Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154 (2010) ...... 38

Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230 (2023) .................................... 36

RLR Investments, LLC v. City of Pigeon Forge,

4 F.4th 380 (6th Cir. 2021),

cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 862 (2022) ................................... 37

VII

Page

Cases—continued:

Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co.:

109 N.E. 766 (Ind. 1915)................................................... 20

131 N.E. 769 (Ind. 1921)................................................... 20

261 U.S. 114 (1923) ...................................................... 20, 21

263 U.S. 413 (1923) ...............................3, 5-9, 14-15, 17-24,

26-29, 31, 33-36, 43-46

Scotland County v. Hill, 132 U.S. 107 (1889) ..................... 22

Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center,

568 U.S. 145 (2013) ............................................................ 38

Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011) .............. 9, 29, 31, 36

Smith v. Apple, 264 U.S. 274 (1924) .................................... 22

Sprint Communications, Inc. v. Jacobs,

571 U.S. 69 (2013) .............................................................. 42

Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida

Department of Environmental Protection,

560 U.S. 702 (2010) ............................................................ 36

Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880 (2008) ............................... 41

United States v. Addonizio, 442 U.S. 178 (1979) ............... 33

United States v. Wong, 575 U.S. 402 (2015) ....................... 39

VanderKodde v. Mary Jane M. Elliott, P.C.,

951 F.3d 397 (6th Cir. 2020) ..................................... 4, 7, 36

Verizon Maryland, Inc. v. Public Service

Commission of Maryland, 535 U.S. 635 (2002) ........... 33

Wall v. Kholi, 562 U.S. 545 (2011) ....................................... 33

Wilkins v. United States, 598 U.S. 152 (2023) ............. 39, 46

Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503 U.S. 131 (1992) ........................ 45

Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971) ................................ 42

Constitution, statutes, and rule:

U.S. Const. Art. III, § 2, cl. 2 .................................................. 6

Act of March 3, 1891, ch. 517, § 5, 26 Stat. 827 ................... 22

28 U.S.C.:

§ 1253 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1254 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1254(1) ............................................................................... 1

VIII

Page

Statutes and rule—continued:

§ 1257 ............................................... 3-6, 8, 14-20, 23, 25-32,

34-35, 37, 40, 43-45

§ 1257(a) ............................................................. 2, 20, 29, 30

§ 1258 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1259 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1260 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1330 .................................................................................. 26

§ 1331 ................................................................................ 2, 6

§ 1332 .................................................................................... 6

§ 1343(a)(3) ........................................................................... 2

§ 1738 .................................................................................. 41

§ 2255 .................................................................................. 33

Md. R. 15-206(b)(2) ................................................................ 12

Miscellaneous:

Susan Bandes, The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine:

Evaluating Its Jurisdictional Status,

74 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1175 (1999) ................................. 7

Black’s Law Dictionary (1st ed. 1891) ................................ 32

Samuel Bray, Rooker Feldman (1923-2006),

9 Green Bag 2d 317 (2006) ........................................... 9, 45

Williamson B.C. Chang, Rediscovering the Rooker

Doctrine: Section 1983, Res Judicata & the

Federal Courts, 31 Hastings L.J. 1337 (1980) ................ 7

F. Andrew Hessick, The Common Law of

Federal Question Jurisdiction,

60 Ala. L. Rev. 895 (2009) ................................................ 46

Restatement (Second) of Judgments (1982)................. 33, 41

Suzanna Sherry, Judicial Federalism in the

Trenches: The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine in

Action, 74 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1085 (1999) ........... 35, 36

Suzanna Sherry, Logic Without Experience:

The Problem of Federal Appellate Courts,

82 Notre Dame L. Rev. 97 (2006) ..................................... 9

In the Supreme Court of the United States

No. 25-197

T.M., PETITIONER

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

MEDICAL SYSTEM CORPORATION, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

BRIEF FOR THE PETITIONER

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion of the court of appeals (Pet. App. 1a-20a)

is reported at 139 F.4th 344. The opinion of the district

court (Pet. App. 21a-35a) is unreported but is available at

2024 WL 3555124.

JURISDICTION

The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on

June 4, 2025. The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed

on August 15, 2025, and was granted on December 5, 2025.

The jurisdiction of this Court rests on 28 U.S.C. 1254(1).

(1)

STATUTORY PROVISIONS INVOLVED

Section 1257(a) of Title 28 of the United States Code

provides:

Final 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 where the validity of a treaty or statute of the

United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of any State is drawn in question on the

ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution,

treaties, or laws of the United States, or where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is specially set up or

claimed under the Constitution or the treaties or statutes of, or any commission held or authority exercised

under, the United States.

Section 1331 of Title 28 of the United States Code provides:

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all

civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or

treaties of the United States.

Section 1343(a)(3) of Title 28 of the United States Code

provides:

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of

any civil action authorized by law to be commenced by

any person * * * [t]o redress the deprivation, under

color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation,

custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity

secured by the Constitution of the United States or by

any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the

United States[.]

STATEMENT

Few doctrines have confounded the lower courts like

the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Under that doctrine, the

Court has interpreted its jurisdiction over final statecourt judgments under 28 U.S.C. 1257 as creating a negative inference concerning the jurisdiction of district

courts, precluding them from adjudicating certain actions

that seek “review” of a final state-court judgment. The

doctrine is named after the only two cases in which the

Court has applied it to dismiss a federal claim: Rooker v.

Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983).

In each of those cases, the losing party before a state court

of last resort filed suit in federal district court, seeking relief from the state-court judgment. The Court has never

extended Rooker-Feldman beyond those specific circumstances.

In the wake of Feldman, however, lower courts began

to apply the doctrine frequently, often extending it “far

beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases”

and thereby “overriding Congress’ conferral of federalcourt jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised

by state courts[] and superseding the ordinary application

of preclusion law.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 283 (2005). In Exxon Mobil,

the Court attempted to cabin the doctrine, reminding

lower courts that “Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances” where the doctrine applies: namely,

where “the losing party in state court filed suit in federal

court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an

injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.” Id. at 291.

Despite the Court’s best efforts in Exxon Mobil,

Rooker-Feldman has returned to its “old tricks” of “inter-

fering with efforts to vindicate federal rights and misleading federal courts into thinking they have no jurisdiction

over cases Congress empowered them to decide.” VanderKodde v. Mary Jane M. Elliott, P.C., 951 F.3d 397, 405

(6th Cir. 2020) (Sutton, J., concurring). Of particular relevance here, a minority of the circuits have extended

Rooker-Feldman to cases in which the relevant statecourt judgment is not yet final within the meaning of Section 1257 but instead remains subject to further review in

state court. The question presented is whether that is a

valid extension of the doctrine.

This case arises out of the involuntary commitment of

petitioner to a state hospital and the hospital’s subsequent

attempts to medicate her against her will. During her

commitment, petitioner filed a habeas action in state

court, seeking her release. A month after filing, the habeas action had not yet been resolved. Faced with the prospect of continued detention and involuntary injection before obtaining relief in the habeas action, petitioner entered a consent decree with the defendants in state trial

court. Petitioner then appealed the consent decree, and

that appeal is pending in state court.

Shortly after entry of the consent decree, petitioner

filed suit in federal court, alleging that she had entered

the consent decree under duress and that the consent decree violated her federal and state constitutional rights.

Despite the pendency of the state-court appeal, the district court held that Rooker-Feldman deprived it of jurisdiction over petitioner’s claims. The court of appeals affirmed, holding (in conflict with a majority of the circuits)

that Rooker-Feldman is “not limited to situations when a

federal court plaintiff no longer has any recourse within

the state system.” Pet. App. 15a.

The court of appeals erred by extending Rooker-Feldman to cases in which the state-court judgment remains

subject to further review in state court. As the Court explained in Exxon Mobil, Rooker-Feldman should be limited to cases like Rooker and Feldman, both of which involved federal actions filed after a decision from the state

court of last resort ended the state litigation. Extending

the doctrine to state-court judgments still subject to appeal is inconsistent with the statutory basis for the doctrine in Section 1257. Under that statute, this Court has

jurisdiction only over a judgment that is final in the sense

of being entered by the state court of last resort and terminating the litigation in state court (whether entirely or

as to the federal issues that give rise to the Court’s jurisdiction). If Section 1257 supports any negative inference,

it is that a district court lacks jurisdiction over only such

a final judgment.

There are also strong practical reasons not to unmoor

the doctrine from its foundation in Section 1257. The doctrine has caused significant confusion in the lower courts.

Its broader application contravenes this Court’s efforts to

delineate jurisdictional rules more precisely. And other

doctrines exist to address concerns about review by lower

federal courts of state-court judgments.

Although the Court need not reconsider Rooker-Feldman in this case, it should do so if it concludes that the

doctrine would otherwise apply even to state-court judgments still subject to further review in state court. The

negative inference on which the doctrine is based has little

footing in the text of Section 1257; the doctrine unnecessarily conflates preclusion with subject-matter jurisdiction; and the problems the doctrine has long caused

demonstrate its unworkability. Even in the face of stare

decisis, the doctrine should be overruled if the Court were

to conclude that it cannot be cabined. In all events, the

court of appeals’ judgment should be reversed.

A. Background

1. As this Court has long explained, federal courts

have a “virtually unflagging obligation * * * to exercise

the jurisdiction given them.” Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817

(1976); see, e.g., Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fikre,

601 U.S. 234, 240 (2024). Congress has given federal district courts original jurisdiction over a number of categories of cases, including cases involving federal questions

and diverse parties. See 28 U.S.C. 1331, 1332.

Congress has also given this Court appellate jurisdiction in certain categories of cases. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C.

1253-1254, 1257-1260; see also U.S. Const., Art. III, § 2, cl.

2. One such category is set forth in 28 U.S.C. 1257; it provides that the Court may review by writ of certiorari

“[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest

court of a State in which a decision could be had,” where

the state court resolved a question of federal law, see, e.g.,

Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983).

2. In Rooker, this Court considered whether a district

court can exercise its original federal-question jurisdiction to consider a claim asking the court to invalidate a

final state-court judgment as contrary to federal law. See

263 U.S. at 414-415. There, the federal plaintiffs had lost

in litigation before the Indiana Supreme Court; were denied relief on jurisdictional grounds by this Court; and

then filed a bill in equity asking a federal district court to

declare the Indiana state-court judgment “null and void”

as contrary to the federal Constitution. See id. at 414.

This Court held that, under what is now Section 1257, “no

court of the United States other than this [C]ourt could

entertain a proceeding to reverse or modify the judgment

for errors of that character.” Id. at 416. The Court thus

affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ federal action for

lack of jurisdiction. See id. at 415.

The Court’s decision in Rooker was “largely forgotten

until a law professor in 1980 re-conceptualized it into a

doctrine that barred federal courts from addressing federal claims that overlapped with state court rulings.”

VanderKodde, 951 F.3d at 405-406 (Sutton, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see

Williamson B.C. Chang, Rediscovering the Rooker Doctrine: Section 1983, Res Judicata & the Federal Courts,

31 Hastings L.J. 1337 (1980).

Three years after the law professor’s article—and

some sixty years after Rooker—the Court applied

Rooker’s holding for the first time since that decision. In

Feldman, the plaintiffs had applied to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals for waivers of a rule governing

admission to the District of Columbia Bar. See 460 U.S.

at 465-466, 470-471. The D.C. Court of Appeals declined

to issue waivers, and the plaintiffs filed suit against that

court in federal district court, alleging that the court’s denial of their waiver requests violated the federal Constitution as well as federal antitrust law. See id. at 468-469,

472-473. Citing Rooker, this Court stated that the district

court would lack jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ actions if

the proceedings in D.C. court were “judicial” in nature,

see id. at 476, which the Court held they were, see id. at

479, 482.

3. After the Court’s decision in Feldman, the obscure

jurisdictional principle applied there and in Rooker proliferated in the lower courts. According to one commentator, Rooker-Feldman grew to become a “docket-clearing

workhorse for the federal courts.” Susan Bandes, The

Rooker-Feldman Doctrine: Evaluating Its Jurisdictional Status, 74 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1175, 1175 (1999).

In turn, differing understandings of the doctrine devel-

oped, generating “confusion and debate” about the doctrine’s proper application. Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459,

467 (2006) (per curiam) (Stevens, J., dissenting).

Some twenty years ago, the Court attempted to clarify

matters in Exxon Mobil. In that case, Exxon Mobil Corporation (ExxonMobil) and two subsidiaries sued the defendant in federal court, raising the same claims that the

subsidiaries had also raised defensively in a pending

state-court suit brought by the federal defendant. See 544

U.S. at 289. The court of appeals, on its own motion, had

dismissed the federal suit, holding that Rooker-Feldman

applied because the federal claims were identical to ones

on which the state trial court had reached judgment. See

id. at 290-291. This Court reversed. See id. at 291. In so

doing, the Court observed that Rooker-Feldman had

“sometimes been construed to extend 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.” Id. at 283.

The Court warned that, properly construed, the doctrine

was “narrow”; “confined to cases of the kind from which

the doctrine acquired its name”; and rooted in the language of Section 1257. Id. at 284, 291.

Specifically, the Court noted that Rooker and Feldman had both involved situations in which “the losing

party in state court filed suit in federal court after the

state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused

by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 291.

The Court held that Rooker-Feldman was “confined” to

“cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the

federal district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Id. at 284.

4. Many believed that the Court had “finally interred” Rooker-Feldman in Exxon Mobil. Lance, 546

U.S. at 468 (Stevens, J., dissenting); see, e.g., Hunter v.

McMahon, 75 F.4th 62, 68 (2d Cir. 2023); Suzanna Sherry,

Logic Without Experience: The Problem of Federal Appellate Courts, 82 Notre Dame L. Rev. 97, 121 (2006);

Samuel Bray, Rooker Feldman (1923-2006), 9 Green Bag

2d 317, 317-318 (2006). And in the two decades since, the

Court has never applied the doctrine to find that a district

court lacked jurisdiction; to this day, Rooker and Feldman remain the only decisions in which the Court has

done so. See, e.g., Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 531532 (2011); Lance, 546 U.S. at 466.

B. Facts And Procedural History

1. Petitioner is a 35-year-old college graduate from

Maryland who has a rare medical condition that affects

her ability to consume foods containing gluten. Ingesting

any amount of gluten can cause changes in petitioner’s

mental status, including episodes of psychosis. Before the

events underlying this case, petitioner regularly saw a

credentialed psychiatrist and took a low dose of antipsychotic medication only when needed to manage her condition. Petitioner’s psychiatrist advised against the use of a

higher dose of medication because of the risk of adverse

side effects, including involuntary bodily movements and

extreme lethargy. Pet. App. 2a-3a, 22a; J.A. 5, 11-12; D.

Ct. Dkt. 2-5, at 1.

In light of her condition, petitioner also executed an

advance medical directive for use if she experienced a psychotic episode and could not competently make medical

decisions. The directive was designed to ensure that petitioner was treated in accordance with her wishes or, if her

wishes were unknown, at the direction of her health-care

agent, who was required to act in her best interests by

weighing the risks and benefits of any proposed treatment. Recognizing that her father was most familiar with

her medical history and reaction to previous treatment,

petitioner selected him as her primary health-care agent.

J.A. 6-7, 11-13.1

2. In 2023, petitioner accidentally consumed gluten

and experienced a psychotic episode. After becoming agitated, she was taken by police to the emergency room of

respondent Baltimore Washington Medical Center.

There, both she and her father asked that she be admitted

voluntarily, but respondents admitted her involuntarily

because of her perceived level of cognitive impairment.

Petitioner was confined at the hospital for nearly three

months. Pet. App. 22a; J.A. 7-8, 14, 16-17.

Petitioner alleges that the Medical Center involuntarily committed her without legitimate justification and

twice sought to inject her with antipsychotic medications

against her will. While the first such request was approved by a clinical review panel, that request was withdrawn in light of petitioner’s voluntary consumption of

oral medication. Petitioner’s treating physician nevertheless attempted to inject petitioner again with antipsychotic medications. Petitioner refused, and petitioner’s

treating physician brought a renewed request for an involuntary injection. A clinical review panel approved the

renewed request; petitioner appealed that approval; and

Petitioner’s directive has since been held invalid under a Maryland law barring a designated health-care agent (here, petitioner’s

mother, who was the alternate) from also serving as a witness to the

directive. See Doe v. University of Maryland Medical System Corp.,

No. 24-1994, 2025 WL 3553026, at *4, *6 (4th Cir. Dec. 11, 2025).

an administrative law judge affirmed. Pet. App. 3a, 22a23a; J.A. 14-16.

3. In response to her treatment at the Medical Center, petitioner filed a series of legal actions in Maryland

state court to obtain relief during her involuntary commitment. First, petitioner filed a petition for judicial review

of the administrative law judge’s decision upholding the

request to inject her with medications against her will.

Second, petitioner filed a habeas petition seeking her release from the Medical Center. Third, petitioner filed several emergency motions for release. Petitioner’s father

also filed suit against the Medical Center and its parent

corporation, respondent University of Maryland Medical

System Corporation, seeking an order requiring them to

recognize petitioner’s advance directive. While those actions were pending in state court, petitioner also filed suit

in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, alleging that the Medical Center and others had violated her federal and state constitutional rights. J.A. 68.

4. After petitioner commenced legal proceedings, the

Medical Center agreed to release her if she agreed to

abide by certain post-release conditions. Petitioner, concerned that she could be involuntarily injected at any

time, agreed to the conditions in order to secure her release. The parties reduced their agreement to a written

document, which the state court entered as a consent order in the habeas action. Pet. App. 3a; J.A. 3-4, 40-41.

The consent order required petitioner to follow new

protocols for her care in perpetuity. In particular, she was

required to obtain a new treating psychiatrist; attend sessions at a local outpatient mental health clinic; and take all

medications prescribed to her by the hospital and then,

once established, her new psychiatric team. The consent

order further required petitioner’s parents to monitor her

use of those medications and report her to the mental

health clinic and a county crisis-prevention team if she

stopped taking them. Finally, the consent order required

petitioner and her parents to dismiss all of the actions

they had filed against the Medical Center, the University

of Maryland Medical System, and other affiliated parties.

Pet. App. 3a, 24a; J.A. 159-161. Under Maryland law, the

medical facilities could enforce the consent order by

bringing a contempt action against petitioner in state

court. See Md. R. 15-206(b)(2).

Petitioner appealed the consent order to the Appellate

Court of Maryland. Pet. App. 25a.

5. Ten days after the consent order was entered (but

before petitioner filed her state-court appeal), petitioner

and her parents filed this action in federal district court

against the University of Maryland Medical System Corporation; the Medical Center; her treating psychiatrist at

the Medical Center; the Medical Center’s president and

chief executive officer; and others. The complaint sought

injunctive relief preventing enforcement of the consent

order; a declaration that the consent order violated the

federal and state constitutional rights of petitioner and

her parents; and a declaration that the order was obtained

under duress. Pet. App. 24a-25a; J.A. 9-11, 46.

The district court ordered the parties to brief the

questions whether the court had subject-matter jurisdiction and whether the court should abstain from exercising

jurisdiction. Although petitioner argued that the RookerFeldman doctrine did not apply, respondents did not address that doctrine, and the district court did not rule on

it at the time. The court proceeded to deny petitioner’s

request for a temporary restraining order, and respondents then moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to

state a claim. Pet. App. 25a; D. Ct. Dkt. 10, at 1; D. Ct.

Dkt. 17, at 5-9; D. Ct. Dkt. 20; D. Ct. Dkt. 34; D. Ct. Dkt.

41-1, at 1.

6. In the Maryland Appellate Court, petitioner

moved for a stay of proceedings pending the outcome of

the federal proceedings. The court granted the motion.

Pet. App. 25a.

7. Despite the continuing state-court proceedings,

the federal district court proceeded to dismiss this case

sua sponte under Rooker-Feldman. Pet. App. 26a-35a.

The court reasoned that, for purposes of Rooker-Feldman, the consent order constituted an adverse state-court

judgment against petitioner; petitioner was complaining

of injuries caused by the consent order; and petitioner was

seeking federal review of the order. Id. at 28a-30a, 32a.

With respect to finality, the district court explained that

petitioner’s appeal to the Maryland Appellate Court had

“made it unclear, at least initially, whether the [c]onsent

[o]rder had become final for purposes of applying RookerFeldman.” Id. at 30a. But “in light of the stay of the pending state appeal,” the district court concluded that petitioner was asking it “effectively [to] entertain an appeal of

a state court judgment that is presently insulated from all

further state court review.” Id. at 30a-32a & n.4.2

8. The court of appeals affirmed. Pet. App. 1a-20a.

The court of appeals explained that petitioner had not disputed that she had filed the federal-court action after the

consent order was entered in state court. Id. at 8a-9a.

The court of appeals also determined that petitioner had

lost in state court; was complaining of injuries caused by

the consent order; and had asked the district court to review and reject the order. Id. at 10a-14a.

The district court dismissed the claims of petitioner’s parents on

the merits, see Pet. App. 35a, and those claims are not at issue here.

Of particular relevance here, the court of appeals rejected petitioner’s argument that Rooker-Feldman was

inapplicable because further review of the state-court

judgment in question was still available. Pet. App. 15a17a. The court of appeals acknowledged that, in Exxon

Mobil, this Court stated that Rooker-Feldman is “confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired

its name” and that, in both Rooker and Feldman, “the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the

state proceedings ended.” Id. at 15a-16a (quoting Exxon

Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284, 291). But the court of appeals

homed in on language in the introduction of the Exxon

Mobil opinion stating that Rooker-Feldman applies to

“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, 544 U.S. at 284; see Pet. App. 7a, 16a.

Because that language did not mention the finality of

state proceedings, the court of appeals held that RookerFeldman applied even in the absence of finality. Pet. App.

16a-17a. The court of appeals reasoned that Section 1257

did not dictate a contrary result, on the ground that “Congress’s failure to give” either this Court or lower federal

courts “any appellate jurisdiction over state court judgments” where additional review by higher state courts remains available meant that “no federal court has jurisdiction to review such decisions.” Id. at 17a. In reaching its

conclusion on finality, the court of appeals expressly

acknowledged the “contrary views of other circuits.” Id.

at 15a.

9. Petitioner sought this Court’s review on the

Rooker-Feldman question, and the Maryland Appellate

Court subsequently extended its stay of petitioner’s appeal pending this Court’s disposition. Pet. App. 36a-37a.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

I. The Court should not extend the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine to state-court decisions that remain subject to

further review in state court.

A. The Court has consistently reiterated that RookerFeldman is exceptionally narrow in scope. It applies only

in the limited circumstances in which the Court’s appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1257 over judgments

from a state court of last resort impliedly precludes a federal district court from “reviewing” a state-court judgment.

Consistent with that narrow scope, the Court has only

twice applied the doctrine to hold that a district court

lacked jurisdiction—in Rooker and in Feldman. Both

cases arose from the same specific fact pattern: federal

plaintiffs brought suit after losing before the state court

of last resort, asking the federal district court to review

and invalidate the final state-court judgment.

In its most recent examination of Rooker-Feldman,

the Court held that the doctrine has no application beyond

Rooker and Feldman’s “limited circumstances.” Exxon

Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S.

280, 291 (2005). Those limited circumstances, the Court

reiterated, involved federal plaintiffs who brought a challenge after the state-court proceedings had ended, asking

the federal court to review and reverse the judgment of

the state court of last resort. Under a faithful application

of Exxon Mobil’s rule, Rooker-Feldman should not extend to a federal action challenging a state-court decision

that remains subject to further review in state court.

Such an action does not fit the narrow factual paradigm of

Rooker and Feldman.

B. Extending Rooker-Feldman to non-final statecourt decisions is also inconsistent with the statutory basis on which the doctrine rests.

As noted above, Rooker-Feldman rests on a negative

inference from the Court’s grant of appellate jurisdiction

in 28 U.S.C. 1257: namely, that, because this Court has

exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from “[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State

in which a decision could be had,” lower federal courts lack

jurisdiction to “review” such judgments. In all of its discussions of the doctrine, the Court has consistently rooted

it in that provision.

Section 1257 grants jurisdiction to the Court to review

a state-court decision only if the decision is issued by the

highest available state court and effectively determines

the litigation. To the extent that any negative inference

can be drawn from Section 1257, it is only that a district

court cannot exercise jurisdiction over a final judgment of

the highest available state court. Section 1257 cannot support the further inference that it bars district-court jurisdiction over an action seeking to prevent the enforcement

of a state-court judgment that, as here, remains subject to

further review and may still be reversed, vacated, or modified in a state proceeding. Extending Rooker-Feldman

to such non-final judgments would necessitate assuming

that, when Congress did not grant jurisdiction to this

Court over those cases, it also intended implicitly to withhold related jurisdiction from district courts. Neither the

text of Section 1257 nor this Court’s precedents provide

any support for that approach.

Nor does any other statute support the inference that

a district court lacks jurisdiction to entertain a freestanding cause of action simply because the complaint seeks to

prevent the enforcement of a state-court judgment. The

filing of a complaint based on a freestanding, federally

cognizable cause of action invokes a district court’s original jurisdiction. Even if the district court is being asked

to exercise the functional equivalent of appellate review,

the plaintiff is not actually asking it to exercise appellate

jurisdiction over a state-court judgment in the sense of reversing or vacating the state-court judgment. Instead,

the plaintiff ’s federal action is best understood to operate

as a collateral attack on the judgment, and a collateral

proceeding is, by definition, not an appeal of the judgment. Congress’s unconditional conferral of original jurisdiction on federal district courts under various statutes

thus presents no bar to the adjudication of collateral attacks on state-court decisions that are not final for purposes of Section 1257.

C. There are compelling practical reasons not to extend Rooker-Feldman to non-final state-court decisions.

Since the Court’s decision in Feldman, Rooker-Feldman has caused endless confusion. Courts have struggled

to define its contours and apply it consistently. Despite

this Court’s best efforts in Exxon Mobil to clarify the doctrine’s underpinnings and scope and to confine it to the

“limited circumstances” of Rooker and Feldman, litigants

frequently continue to invoke the doctrine, and lower

courts frequently continue to apply it. That has led to contradictory case law and inconsistent results, as this case

illustrates.

Expanding the doctrine would run afoul of the Court’s

often-repeated objective of ensuring that jurisdictional

rules are clear and firmly rooted in statutory text. Labeling a rule as jurisdictional comes with well-recognized

consequences. The Court described Rooker-Feldman as

jurisdictional when it first recognized it more than a century ago. But expanding it to the circumstances here

would untether it from its statutory basis and make it

more difficult to apply.

In addition, preclusion and abstention doctrines already exist to address concerns with collateral attacks on

state-court judgments. Those non-jurisdictional doctrines are far more flexible than the jurisdictional RookerFeldman doctrine, and applying them allows the States to

determine the effect of their judgments, rather than imposing a uniform and inflexible federal rule. Put simply,

there is little reason to expand Rooker-Feldman, and

every reason not to.

II. If the Court were to conclude that Rooker-Feldman would otherwise apply to non-final state-court decisions, the Court should reconsider the doctrine altogether. Although the doctrine purports to rest on a negative inference from Section 1257, the statute says nothing to suggest that Congress sought to limit the lower

courts’ original jurisdiction. Nor can the doctrine rest on

any claimed distinction between original jurisdiction and

appellate jurisdiction. And stare decisis considerations do

not support retaining Rooker-Feldman, because the doctrine has been heavily criticized, proven unworkable, and

garnered few (if any) reliance interests. If the choice is

between expanding the doctrine or retiring it, the Court

should take the latter course. The Court need not go that

far, however, in order to reverse the court of appeals’

judgment.

ARGUMENT

THE ROOKER-FELDMAN DOCTRINE SHOULD NOT

EXTEND TO A STATE-COURT JUDGMENT SUBJECT

TO FURTHER REVIEW IN STATE COURT

Rooker-Feldman is a narrow doctrine precluding district courts from exercising jurisdiction over claims seeking review of a final state-court judgment. The Court has

applied the doctrine to dismiss a case for lack of jurisdiction only twice, in the cases from which the doctrine gets

its name: Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413

(1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). Each of those cases involved an

attempt by federal plaintiffs to seek review of the final

judgment of a state court of last resort—the kind of judgment this Court has jurisdiction to review under Section

1257.

In the decision below, the court of appeals expanded

Rooker-Feldman beyond the limited circumstances of

those cases to encompass claims seeking relief from a

state-court judgment still pending on appellate review in

state court. That was erroneous. The Court has made

clear that Rooker-Feldman should apply only in cases like

Rooker and Feldman, both of which involved final statecourt judgments. Expanding the doctrine to non-final

state-court judgments is inconsistent with the doctrine’s

statutory basis in Section 1257. And there are strong

practical reasons not to expand the doctrine, given the

need for clear and administrable jurisdictional rules and

the availability of other doctrines to limit lower federal

courts from second-guessing state-court judgments. The

court of appeals erred by extending Rooker-Feldman to

cases in which the state-court judgment at issue remains

subject to further review in state court. The court of appeals’ judgment should be reversed.

A. The Court Has Applied The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine

Only To The Final Decisions Of State Courts Of Last

Resort

Rooker-Feldman applies in the “limited circumstances” in which this Court’s appellate jurisdiction over

state-court judgments prevents a district court from “exercising subject-matter jurisdiction in an action it would

otherwise be empowered to adjudicate under a congressional grant of authority.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi

Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 291 (2005). Under

28 U.S.C. 1257, this Court has jurisdiction to review

“[f]inal judgments * * * rendered by the highest court

of a State in which a decision could be had,” where the

judgment sufficiently implicates a question of federal law.

28 U.S.C. 1257(a); see, e.g., Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian

Affairs, 556 U.S. 163, 171-172 (2009). Because Section

1257 gives this Court the “exclusive[]” appellate jurisdiction to “reverse or modify a state-court judgment,” the

Court has interpreted the statute as impliedly depriving a

district court of jurisdiction over a claim asking it to “overturn an injurious state-court judgment.” Exxon Mobil,

544 U.S. at 283, 292.

Rooker and Feldman are the only two cases in which

this Court has ever held that its appellate jurisdiction impliedly deprived a district court of jurisdiction over a

claim. See Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 463 (2006) (per

curiam). And in both of those cases, the plaintiffs filed suit

in federal court after receiving a final determination from

the highest court in the relevant State (or, in the case of

Feldman, the District of Columbia). The Court has never

applied the Rooker-Feldman doctrine to a case where the

federal action was filed while state proceedings remained

pending. And the Court has since clarified that the doctrine should apply only in cases involving the “limited circumstances” of Rooker and Feldman. See Exxon Mobil,

544 U.S. at 291.

1. Rooker began as a real-estate dispute between the

plaintiffs and a trust company. See 109 N.E. 766, 766, 768

(Ind. 1915). The plaintiffs filed suit against the trust company in Indiana state court, contending that the company

had “violated and repudiated the trust.” 261 U.S. 114, 115

(1923). The company ultimately prevailed in the trial

court, and the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed. See 131

N.E. 769, 773-774, 776 (Ind. 1921). The plaintiffs then

sought rehearing before the Indiana Supreme Court, arguing for the first time that an allegedly relevant state

statute violated the federal Constitution. See 261 U.S. at

117. The Indiana Supreme Court denied the petition

without opinion. See ibid. The plaintiffs then sought relief from this Court on a writ of error, but the Court dismissed the writ for lack of jurisdiction. See id. at 116-118.

The Court determined that, because the plaintiffs had not

raised the federal question until the rehearing stage at the

Indiana Supreme Court, “the record did not disclose the

presence of any question constituting a basis for * * *

review.” 263 U.S. 413, 414 (1923).

After failing to secure a writ of error, the plaintiffs

filed a bill in equity in federal district court, asking the

court to “declare[] null and void” the Indiana Supreme

Court’s judgment on constitutional grounds. See Rooker,

263 U.S. at 414-415. The trust company moved to dismiss,

arguing that the district court lacked jurisdiction because

the suit was between citizens of the same State and did

not “substantially or really involve[]” a federal question.

D. Ct. R. 80, Rooker, 263 U.S. 413 (No. 23-295). The district court agreed in a brief order and dismissed the case.

See id. at 80-81.

The plaintiffs appealed to this Court. See Rooker, 263

U.S. at 415. They argued that the district court had jurisdiction because their suit presented federal questions:

namely, whether the state court’s “judicial determination”

violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses

and whether a state statute at issue violated the Contract

Clause. See Appellants’ Br. at 121-122, Rooker, supra

(No. 23-295). The trust company moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction or, in the alternative, to affirm.

Appellee’s Br. at 14, Rooker, supra. In particular, the

company argued that the plaintiffs’ suit could not “be entertained by any court, [f]ederal or otherwise,” because

the bill in equity “involved only a bald and undisguised

collateral attack” on the Indiana Supreme Court’s judgment and did not actually present a federal question. Id.

at 14-17. In support of that argument, the trust company

cited precedents from this Court dismissing appeals that

failed to present a federal question or were barred by

principles of res judicata. See id. at 14 (citing Forsyth v.

Hammond, 166 U.S. 506, 516 (1897); Scotland County v.

Hill, 132 U.S. 107, 114 (1889); Chicago & Alton Railroad

Co. v. Wiggins Ferry Co., 108 U.S. 18 (1883); and Caujolle

v. Ferrié, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 465 (1871)).3

This Court affirmed in a brief opinion, albeit on

grounds broader than the ones the parties had raised. To

“test[]” the “power of the [d]istrict [c]ourt to entertain”

the plaintiffs’ action, the Court assumed for the sake of

argument that the federal issues raised by the plaintiffs

had been “questions of substance” in the state courts.

Rooker, 263 U.S. at 416. And it held that the district court

lacked jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ actions. See id. at

415-416.

The trust company also raised another reason that the Court

lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. See Appellee’s Br. at 14-15,

Rooker, supra. Under the Judiciary Act of 1891, this Court had the

authority to review questions of “jurisdiction” of the lower federal

courts. See ch. 517, § 5, 26 Stat. 827. The Court had construed the

scope of that review as limited to questions concerning a lower federal

court’s “power to entertain the suit under the laws of the United

States”—i.e., subject-matter or personal jurisdiction. Smith v. Apple, 264 U.S. 274, 277 (1924). Citing that line of cases, the trust company argued that no such question was at issue in Rooker because

case did not “necessarily involve a question of the jurisdiction of the

District Court as a Federal tribunal.” Appellee’s Br. at 14. This

Court had previously agreed. See Blythe v. Hinckley, 173 U.S. 501,

507 (1899) (holding that a dismissal on the ground that “the judgments of the state courts could not be reviewed on the reasons put

forward” was not “in itself a decision for want of jurisdiction” that

permitted review).

The Court began by explaining that the state trial

court had properly exercised jurisdiction over the matter

and that, “[i]f the constitutional questions stated in the bill

actually arose” in state court, it was the “province and

duty of the state courts to decide them.” Rooker, 263 U.S.

at 415. If the state court had erred in deciding those questions, the Court continued, “that [wou]ld not make the

judgment void, but merely le[ave] it open to reversal or

modification in an appropriate and timely appellate proceeding.” Ibid. The Court explained that the state court’s

decision constituted an “effective and conclusive adjudication” unless “reversed or modified” on appeal. Ibid.

The Court then proceeded to state that, under what is

now Section 1257, “no Court of the United States other

than this [C]ourt could entertain a proceeding to reverse

or modify” the Indiana Supreme Court’s judgment.

Rooker, 263 U.S. at 416. To do so, the Court reasoned,

would constitute an “exercise of appellate jurisdiction” beyond the “strictly original” jurisdiction of the district

courts. Ibid. The Court also noted that the time for seeking its review of the Indiana Supreme Court’s judgment

had lapsed before the bill was filed in federal court. See

ibid. The Court explained that a litigant cannot “indirectly” challenge a judgment when “he no longer can do

[so] directly.” Ibid. (citation omitted).

2. For nearly sixty years, Rooker lingered in obscurity. This Court cited Rooker only once, “in reference to

the finality of prior judgments.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S.

at 288 n.3 (citing Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair

Corp., 328 U.S. 275, 283 (1946)). But then, in Feldman,

the Court suddenly resurrected Rooker’s rule. See 460

U.S. at 476, 482.

The litigation in Feldman began when two individuals

petitioned the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to

waive a rule barring their admission to the District of Columbia Bar. See 460 U.S. at 466, 471. After the D.C. court

denied their petitions, the plaintiffs filed suit in federal

district court against the D.C. court and others, alleging

that the denial of their petitions violated the Constitution

and federal antitrust law. See id. at 468-469, 472-473. In

each case, the district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction; it held that Congress had entrusted matters of admission to the D.C. Bar

to the D.C. Court of Appeals, subject only to review by

this Court. See Pet. App. at 65a-66a, 68a, Feldman, 460

U.S. 462 (No. 81-1335).

The District of Columbia Circuit reversed both judgments, holding that the district court had jurisdiction. See

661 F.2d 1295, 1310 (1981). The D.C. Circuit reasoned

that, although a district court lacks jurisdiction to review

“a final judgment of the highest judicial tribunal of a

state,” the D.C. Court of Appeals’ waiver determinations

were administrative decisions over which the district

court had jurisdiction, rather than judicial ones over

which it would not. Ibid.; see id. at 1315-1317.

The defendants petitioned this Court for review. The

plaintiffs did not contest that the district court would have

lacked jurisdiction if the proceedings in D.C. court had

been judicial in nature; instead, they argued only that the

D.C. court had acted in an administrative capacity when

denying their waiver requests. See Hickey Br. at 16, 20,

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983) (No. 81-1335); Feldman Br.

at 21, Feldman, supra. The parties cited this Court’s decision in Rooker only once in the briefing, and no one mentioned the case at oral argument. See Pet. Br. at 24, Feldman, supra; Tr. of Oral Arg., Feldman, supra.

This Court ultimately agreed with the defendants,

holding that the district court lacked jurisdiction to review

the denial of the plaintiffs’ waiver petitions. See Feldman,

460 U.S. at 479, 482. The Court began from the premise

that the district court necessarily would have lacked jurisdiction to “review final determinations of the District of

Columbia Court of Appeals in judicial proceedings.” Id.

at 476. “Review of such determinations,” the Court explained, “can be obtained only in this Court” under Section 1257. Ibid. The Court explained that Section 1257

thus “act[s] as a bar” to a district court’s jurisdiction

where the court is being asked to “review[] a state-court

judicial decision.” Id. at 486; see id. at 476, 482 & n.16.

Proceeding from that premise, the Court held that the

district court lacked jurisdiction over part of the case but

had jurisdiction over another. In particular, the district

court lacked jurisdiction over the plaintiffs’ challenge to

the D.C. court’s denial of their waiver requests, because

those denials were issued in judicial proceedings. See

Feldman, 460 U.S. at 476-482, 486. But the district court

did have jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ challenges to a general rule promulgated by the D.C. Court of Appeals, because that challenge did not “require review of a judicial

decision in a particular case.” Id. at 487.

3. More than twenty years later, the Court reexamined the Rooker-Feldman doctrine in Exxon Mobil.

The question presented there was whether the doctrine

applied where the federal action presented issues identical to ones that were still pending in a state-court proceeding. See Pet. Br. at i, Exxon Mobil, supra (No. 03-1696).

In the lower-court proceedings, ExxonMobil and two of

its subsidiaries had filed suit in federal court over a jointventure dispute with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation

(SABIC) after SABIC had filed suit in state court against

the ExxonMobil subsidiaries. See 544 U.S. at 289. ExxonMobil also raised the same claims that it had filed in

federal court as counterclaims in state court. See ibid.

The federal and state litigation proceeded in parallel.

See Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 289-290. ExxonMobil prevailed in state trial court, and SABIC appealed. See id. at

289. At the same time, the federal litigation reached the

Third Circuit on an interlocutory appeal. See id. at 290.

The Third Circuit invoked Rooker-Feldman sua sponte

and held that, once the state trial court had entered judgment for ExxonMobil on its counterclaims, the federal district court lost jurisdiction over those same claims. See

ibid.

This Court reversed. As the Court explained, in the

twenty years following Feldman, the “lower courts” had

“[v]ariously interpreted” Rooker-Feldman to “extend far

beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases.”

Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 283. This Court, however, had

applied the doctrine “only twice”—in Rooker and in Feldman. Ibid. The Court held that the Third Circuit had

“misperceived the narrow ground occupied by RookerFeldman.” Id. at 284.

The Court explained that Rooker and Feldman “exhibit the limited circumstances” in which this Court’s jurisdiction under Section 1257 “precludes” a district court’s

jurisdiction in an action that it would “otherwise be empowered to adjudicate under a congressional grant of authority” (there, 28 U.S.C. 1330). Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S.

at 291. In both Rooker and Feldman, the “losing party in

state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings [had] ended,” asking the district court to “review

and reject[]” the state-court judgment. Ibid. The federal

district court could not entertain a challenge of that variety, the Court explained, because Section 1257 “vests authority to review a state court’s judgment solely in this

Court.” Id. at 292. As the Court put it in the introduction

to the opinion, 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 Court proceeded to explain that Rooker-Feldman

is “not triggered simply by the entry of judgment in state

court.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 292. “Nor does [Section]

1257 stop a district court from exercising subject-matter

jurisdiction simply because a party attempts to litigate in

federal court a matter previously litigated in state court.”

Id. at 293. Rather, the only question in those situations is

whether other doctrines, such as preclusion or abstention,

would defeat the plaintiff ’s claim on the merits. See id. at

292-293. Applying those principles to the facts before it,

the Court held that Rooker-Feldman did not bar the district court from exercising jurisdiction over ExxonMobil’s

claims. See ibid.

4. The decision in Exxon Mobil strongly suggests

that Rooker-Feldman should not apply to cases filed in

federal court while proceedings in state court remain

pending. Attempting to return the doctrine to its narrow

foundations, the Court made clear that the doctrine

should be limited to cases like Rooker and Feldman,

where “the losing party in state court filed suit in federal

court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an

injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment.” Exxon Mobil, 544

U.S. at 291. Although the Court’s separate language in

the introduction of the opinion did not contain an express

finality limitation, the Court’s ensuing discussion made

clear that both Rooker and Feldman involved a federal

action filed “after state proceedings ended.” Ibid. Indeed, in both Rooker and Feldman, the cases had proceeded to the highest courts of Indiana and the District of

Columbia, respectively. See Rooker, 263 U.S. at 414;

Feldman, 460 U.S. at 463-464. And in each case, the federal plaintiffs asked the federal district court to invalidate

the judgment of the state court of last resort. See Rooker,

263 U.S. at 414-415; Feldman, 460 U.S. at 476, 482.

Exxon Mobil establishes that Rooker-Feldman applies only in cases like Rooker and Feldman. For that

reason, the doctrine should not apply where a federal action challenging a state-court decision is filed while the

state-court decision remains subject to further review in

state court. Neither Rooker nor Feldman involved that

type of circumstance. And as we will explain, there are

compelling reasons not to extend Rooker and Feldman to

the situation presented here.

B. Extending The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine To Non-Final State-Court Decisions Is Inconsistent With The

Doctrine’s Statutory Basis

The Court has consistently rooted Rooker-Feldman in

the Court’s grant of appellate jurisdiction in Section 1257.

Breaking from the majority of the circuits, the court of

appeals in this case extended the doctrine beyond the

facts of Rooker and Feldman to circumstances in which

the federal action was filed when the relevant state trialcourt judgment remains subject to further review. That

extension is inconsistent with the doctrine’s statutory basis.

1. As noted above, see pp. 19-20, Rooker-Feldman is

premised on a negative inference from Section 1257. The

idea is that, because this Court’s “jurisdiction over appeals from final state-court judgments” is “exclusive,”

“[r]eview of such judgments may be had only in this

Court.” Lance, 546 U.S. at 463 (citation omitted). The

federal district courts are thus “preclude[d]” from exer-

cising jurisdiction over claims seeking “review and rejection” of a state-court judgment. Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at

291.

The Court has repeatedly confirmed that Section 1257

forms the basis for Rooker-Feldman. In Rooker, the

Court expressly relied on the predecessor to Section 1257

to hold that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the

federal plaintiffs’ claims. See 263 U.S. at 415-416. In

Feldman, the Court cited Section 1257 for the proposition

that “review [of] final determinations of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in judicial proceedings * * *

can be obtained only in this Court.” 460 U.S. at 476. And

in Exxon Mobil, the Court explained that Rooker-Feldman exists because Section 1257 “precludes a United

States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction” over some claims the district court would “otherwise be empowered to adjudicate.” 544 U.S. at 291.

Across the Court’s other cases discussing Rooker-Feldman, the Court has consistently described the doctrine as

rooted in Section 1257. See Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S.

521, 531-532 (2011); Lance, 546 U.S. at 463; ASARCO Inc.

v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 622 (1989).

2. Declining to extend Rooker-Feldman to cases in

which the state-court judgment remains subject to further review in state court is most consistent with Section

1257’s text and operation.

Under Section 1257, this Court has jurisdiction to “review[]” by writ of certiorari “[f]inal judgments or decrees

rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,” where the state-court judgment sufficiently depends on the resolution of a question of federal

law. 28 U.S.C. 1257(a); see Office of Hawaiian Affairs,

556 U.S. at 171-172. That language creates a “firm final

judgment rule”: a state-court judgment that sufficiently

implicates a federal question is subject to the Court’s review when (1) it is “subject to no further review or correction in any other state tribunal” and (2) it is “final as an

effective determination of the litigation and not of merely

interlocutory or intermediate steps therein.” Jefferson v.

City of Tarrant, 522 U.S. 75, 81 (1997).

Neither of those requirements is satisfied in a case

concerning a state-court decision that is subject to further

review in state court. First, when a state-court decision

remains pending on appeal, it is subject to “further review

or correction in [another] state tribunal.” Jefferson, 522

U.S. at 81. In statutory terms, it would not be a judgment

of “the highest court of a State in which a decision could

be had.” 28 U.S.C. 1257(a). Second, a decision subject to

further review in state court is an “intermediate step[]”

and not “an effective determination of the litigation,” because the decision could be reversed, vacated, or modified

on appeal. Jefferson, 522 U.S. at 81. In statutory terms,

the decision would not be “final.” See 28 U.S.C. 1257(a).

And even in the narrow category of cases in which this

Court exercises jurisdiction over interlocutory state-court

judgments, it does so only after the “highest court of a

State has finally determined the federal issue present in a

particular case.” Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420

U.S. 469, 477 (1975); see, e.g., Pierce County v. Guillen,

537 U.S. 129, 140-143 (2003); ASARCO, 490 U.S. at 610612.

Because Section 1257 provides this Court with jurisdiction over final judgments from state courts of last resort, the most natural negative inference to draw from the

text of the statute (if any is to be drawn) is that a federal

district court cannot exercise jurisdiction over claims

seeking review of such final judgments. By providing the

Court with jurisdiction to review such judgments, Congress has arguably implied that it does not want other

courts to exercise such jurisdiction. That explains why

the Court has described Rooker-Feldman as a “construction of [Section] 1257” that “bar[s] direct review in lower

federal courts of a decision reached by the highest state

court,” ASARCO, 490 U.S. at 622-623 (emphasis added),

when the federal suit is filed “after the state proceedings

ended,” Skinner, 562 U.S. at 531.

Applying Rooker-Feldman to non-final judgments

would require drawing a much broader negative inference

from Section 1257 than the one the Court has previously

drawn—and a much weaker one at that. Rooker and Feldman themselves at most support the inference that Section 1257 precludes district-court jurisdiction over final

state-court judgments, because both of the judgments in

those cases were final for purposes of Section 1257. But

to read Section 1257 as precluding district-court jurisdiction over non-final judgments, this Court would have to

assume that Congress wanted to preclude district-court

jurisdiction over categories of claims over which this

Court also lacks jurisdiction. In other words, the Court

would have to assume that, by not providing it with jurisdiction over a category of cases, Congress intended implicitly to deprive the district courts of jurisdiction over

that category of cases too.

It is one thing to say that, where Congress expressly

provides jurisdiction to one court, it impliedly intends to

withhold related jurisdiction from another court. It is

quite another to draw a negative inference from Congress’s refusal to grant such jurisdiction to a court. Put

another way, it simply does not follow that, by failing to

confer a certain type of jurisdiction on this Court, Congress implicitly intended to deprive other courts of related jurisdiction. If any negative inference is to be drawn

from Section 1257, it is the one the Court drew in Rooker

and Feldman: namely, that the statute precludes a district court from exercising jurisdiction over a final judgment from the highest state court in which a decision

could be had.

3. Apart from Section 1257, there is no valid basis for

inferring that a district court lacks jurisdiction to entertain a freestanding cause of action merely because the

complaint seeks, as is the case here, relief preventing the

enforcement of a state-court judgment. Where a plaintiff

commences an action in federal district court seeking the

adjudication of a freestanding cause of action, the plaintiff

is, by definition, invoking the district court’s original jurisdiction. After all, the plaintiff is asking the court to

“take cognizance” of the new cause of action “at its inception, try it, and pass judgment upon the law and facts” on

a record to be developed in that court. Black’s Law Dictionary 857 (1st ed. 1891) (defining “original jurisdiction”).

That remains true even if the plaintiff seeks relief preventing enforcement of a state-court judgment. Whether

the plaintiff is seeking a declaration that a state-court

judgment is invalid, or an injunction against enforcement

of the judgment, the district court is not actually being

called upon to “revise[] and correct[] the proceedings” in

the first action, in the sense of reversing or vacating the

judgment based on the record compiled in the earlier proceeding. Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 175

(1803). Instead, the district court is being asked to prevent the judgment from being enforced in subsequent,

separate proceedings. Regardless of the district court’s

action, the state-court judgment will remain in place.

In that way, a claim that seeks to prevent the enforcement of a state-court judgment in federal court is more

akin to a “collateral attack” on the earlier judgment, as

opposed to an appeal of that judgment. Feldman, 460

U.S. at 490 (Stevens, J., dissenting). A “collateral attack”

is “[a]n attack on a judgment in a proceeding other than a

direct appeal.” Wall v. Kholi, 562 U.S. 545, 552 (2011) (citation omitted). Although a collateral attack may involve

“review” of an earlier decision, it is distinctive because it

is a “form of review that is not part of the direct appeal

process.” Id. at 552, 553; see United States v. Addonizio,

442 U.S. 178, 184 (1979) (discussing collateral attacks on

federal criminal judgments under 28 U.S.C. 2255).

As the Court has explained, a federal district court’s

exercise of habeas jurisdiction—perhaps the most familiar form of collateral review of state-court judgments—

has “generally been deemed original.” Fay v. Noia, 372

U.S. 391, 407, 423-424 & n.34 (1963). And lower courts

have also long had the authority to consider certain collateral attacks on judgments, such as arguments that the

judgment-entering court lacked jurisdiction. See, e.g.,

Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U.S. 409, 444 (1897); Earle v.

McVeigh, 91 U.S. 503, 507 (1876).4

To be sure, the Court has said on occasion that the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine reflects the fact that most statutes governing the jurisdiction of district courts confer

“original jurisdiction” and not “appellate jurisdiction over

state-court judgments.” Verizon Maryland, Inc. v. Public Service Commission of Maryland, 535 U.S. 635, 644

n.3 (2002). And in Rooker, the Court observed that the

plaintiffs’ claim would have required an “exercise of ap-

Of particular relevance here, courts have long exercised their

original jurisdiction to entertain collateral attacks on judgments alleged to have been procured through duress. See, e.g., Griffith v.

Bank of New York, 147 F.2d 899, 901-902 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 325

U.S. 874 (1945); Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 70 (1982); see

also J.A. 40-44, 152-155 (alleging that petitioner agreed to the statecourt consent order under duress).

pellate jurisdiction” beyond the “strictly original” jurisdiction of the district courts. 263 U.S. at 416. The better

understanding, however, is that a freestanding claim asking a district court to prevent the enforcement of a statecourt judgment is not truly a request for the exercise of

appellate jurisdiction.

This Court’s modern precedents bolster that conclusion by indicating that the type of relief being sought in a

case should not bear on a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction. As the Court recently explained, a district court’s

lack of “ ‘jurisdiction or authority’ to grant a particular

form of relief ” does not “deprive [it] of all subject matter

jurisdiction over claims” that would otherwise fall within

its original jurisdiction. Biden v. Texas, 597 U.S. 785, 798

(2022). Accordingly, even if principles of preclusion prevent a district court from awarding some forms of relief in

a collateral attack on a state-court judgment, it does not

follow that the court lacks the “power to adjudicate [the]

case.” Ibid. (citation omitted).

All of that explains why, in Exxon Mobil, the Court

said that Rooker-Feldman applies where a district court

would “otherwise be empowered to adjudicate” the action.

544 U.S. at 291. A district court considering a collateral

attack on a judgment is exercising its original jurisdiction,

such that it has the authority to entertain the action assuming that any other requirements for jurisdiction are

met. The court is not actually exercising appellate jurisdiction; at most, it is exercising what “in substance” would

be appellate review. Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997,

1005-1006 (1994). For that reason, in the absence of a negative inference from Section 1257, there is no bar on a district court’s exercise of jurisdiction over claims such as the

ones at issue here. And because Section 1257 is best interpreted to preclude district-court jurisdiction only over

a final judgment from the highest state court in which a

decision could be had, the district court here had jurisdiction over petitioner’s claims.

C. There Are Compelling Practical Reasons Not To Expand The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine To Non-Final

State Court Decisions

Given the absence of textual or precedential support

for expanding Rooker-Feldman to non-final state-court

decisions, there is no valid reason for doing so—and every

reason to confine the doctrine to its original scope. For

decades, the doctrine has caused significant confusion for

judges and litigants alike, leading to contradictory results

and the failure of lower courts to exercise their jurisdiction to the full extent conferred by Congress. A decision

from this Court expanding the doctrine beyond the facts

of Rooker and Feldman—in contravention of the Court’s

most recent guidance on the doctrine in Exxon Mobil—

would merely exacerbate the problem. Such an expansion

would also conflict with the Court’s consistent admonishments that jurisdictional rules should be easy to administer and firmly rooted in statutory text. Worse still, expanding the doctrine would serve no meaningful purpose,

because other doctrines already exist to address concerns

about competing federal-court and state-court proceedings.

1. Rooker-Feldman has famously confused and frustrated the lower courts. As this Court explained in Exxon

Mobil, the notion that Section 1257 implicitly precludes

the jurisdiction of district courts in some circumstances

had largely lain dormant for the sixty years between

Rooker and Feldman. After Feldman, however, the notion grew into a doctrine and experienced “explosive

growth.” Suzanna Sherry, Judicial Federalism in the

Trenches: The Rooker-Feldman Doctrine in Action, 74

Notre Dame L. Rev. 1085, 1088 (1999). Of particular concern, the doctrine was “sometimes * * * construed to

extend far beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases, overriding Congress’ conferral of federalcourt jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised

by state courts, and superseding the ordinary application

of preclusion law.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 283.

In Exxon Mobil, this Court attempted to rein in that

overuse by holding that Rooker-Feldman is “confined to

cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its

name.” 544 U.S. at 284; see pp. 25-27, supra. And in subsequent cases in which the doctrine has been invoked, the

Court has continued to define its scope narrowly. See

Reed v. Goertz, 598 U.S. 230, 235 (2023); Skinner, 562 U.S.

at 531-533; Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 560 U.S.

702, 727-728 (2010); Lance, 546 U.S. at 463-466. But

“[n]otwithstanding Exxon Mobil’s efforts to return Rooker-Feldman to its modest roots, lawyers continue to invoke the rule and judges continue to dismiss federal actions under it.” VanderKodde v. Mary Jane M. Elliott,

P.C., 951 F.3d 397, 405 (6th Cir. 2020) (Sutton, J., concurring).

Numerous judges have expressed frustration with the

doctrine’s continued proliferation after Exxon Mobil.

Chief Judge Sutton, the former chair of the Committee on

Rules of Practice and Procedure, has described the doctrine as “caus[ing] so much mischief, creating needless

complications, distracting litigants and courts from the

properly presented federal issues at hand, and helping no

one, not even the supposed beneficiaries of its largesse:

state court judgments.” VanderKodde, 951 F.3d at 405

(concurring opinion). Judge Kirsch has noted that, “[d]espite Exxon’s command to rein in Rooker-Feldman, [this]

circuit’s application of the doctrine has only grown.”

Hadzi-Tanovic v. Johnson, 62 F.4th 394, 410 (7th Cir.

2023) (dissenting opinion). Other judges have made similar observations. See, e.g., Hunter v. McMahon, 75 F.4th

62, 68 (2d Cir. 2023) (Menashi, J.); RLR Investments, LLC

v. City of Pigeon Forge, 4 F.4th 380, 399-400 (6th Cir.

2021) (Clay, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 862

(2022).

Notably, after a recent en banc decision that deeply

divided the Seventh Circuit, “all members” of that court

“agree[d] that [their] different understandings of the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine may help show a need for [this]

Court to clarify application of the doctrine.” Gilbank v.

Wood County Department of Human Services, 111 F.4th

754, 761 (2024), cert. denied, 145 S. Ct. 1167 (2025). Much

of the disagreement among the judges in that case—and

more broadly, among judges across the Nation—stems

from the need to determine when a plaintiff is seeking federal “review and rejection” of a state-court judgment. See

id. at 769-778; see also, e.g., Hoblock v. Albany County

Board of Elections, 422 F.3d 77, 86 (2d Cir. 2008); Great

Western Mining & Mineral Co. v. Fox Rothschild LLP,

615 F.3d 159, 169-172 (3d Cir. 2010), cert. denied, 563 U.S.

904 (2011); Dodson v. University of Arkansas for Medical

Sciences, 601 F.3d 750, 757-759 (11th Cir. 2010) (Melloy,

J., concurring), cert. denied, 562 U.S. 1135 (2011).

The expansion of Rooker-Feldman to cases involving

still-pending state proceedings would only exacerbate the

problems that the doctrine is causing. Adopting the court

of appeals’ rule—which was previously the law in only one

other circuit since Exxon Mobil, see Pet. 14-22—would

extend the doctrine to a significant swath of additional

cases. And if the doctrine is no longer tethered to the text

of Section 1257, it could raise a host of additional questions

about the doctrine’s scope. The predictable consequence

would be further conflict among the lower courts and confusion among jurists and litigants.

2. Expanding Rooker-Feldman to encompass statecourt decisions still subject to further review is also contrary to the Court’s overall objective of clarifying and simplifying jurisdictional rules.

Over the last several decades, the Court has made significant efforts to clarify the concept of jurisdiction, “a

word with many, too many, meanings.” Arbaugh v. Y&H

Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 510 (2006) (internal quotation marks

and citation omitted). As the Court has explained, labeling a rule to implicate a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction

has serious consequences. See, e.g., id. at 513. A jurisdictional objection “can never be forfeited or waived,” because jurisdiction “involves a court’s power to hear a

case.” Id. at 514 (internal quotation marks and citation

omitted). A court also has “an independent obligation to

determine whether subject-matter jurisdiction exists,

even in the absence of a challenge from any party.” Ibid.

And if a court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction, the action

must be dismissed, no matter how far the litigation has

proceeded. See ibid. That is “strong medicine for litigants, attorneys, and judges alike.” Herr v. United States

Forest Service, 803 F.3d 809, 814 (6th Cir. 2015).

Given the consequences of labeling a rule as jurisdictional, the Court has emphasized that a rule should be so

construed only when Congress has “clearly stated” that a

statute implicates the judiciary’s subject-matter jurisdiction. Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568

U.S. 145, 153 (2013) (internal quotation marks, citation,

and alteration omitted); see Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, 559 U.S. 154, 163 (2010). And where Congress has

imposed a jurisdictional limit, the rules governing that

limit themselves “should be clear.” Direct Marketing As-

sociation v. Brohl, 575 U.S. 1, 14 (2015) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “Complex jurisdictional

tests complicate a case, eating up time and money as the

parties litigate, not the merits of their claims, but which

court is the right court to decide those claims.” Hertz

Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 94 (2010). By contrast,

“courts benefit from straightforward rules under which

they can readily assure themselves of their power to hear

a case,” which also “promotes greater predictability.”

Ibid. The Court thus favors “clear boundaries in the interpretation of jurisdictional statutes.” Direct Marketing

Association, 575 U.S. at 11.

The Court’s focus on simplicity and clarity in subjectmatter jurisdiction can be seen in case after case. In particular, the Court has repeatedly rejected arguments that

a procedural requirement should be construed as jurisdictional when “Congress [did not] clearly signal[] that the

rule is meant to have that status.” Riley v. Bondi, 606

U.S. 259, 274 (2025); see, e.g., Wilkins v. United States,

598 U.S. 152, 157-159 (2023); Fort Bend County v. Davis,

587 U.S. 541, 547-550 (2019); United States v. Wong, 575

U.S. 402, 409-410 (2015); Henderson v. Shinseki, 562 U.S.

428, 435-436, 441-442 (2011). The Court has also rejected

attempts to characterize judge-made doctrines as jurisdictional. See Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services

of Chicago, 583 U.S. 17, 19, 25-27 & n.9 (2017). And where

the Court has treated a statutory requirement as jurisdictional, it has sought to eliminate ambiguity in its application. See, e.g., Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v.

Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co., 581 U.S.

170, 183 (2017); Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith

Inc. v. Manning, 578 U.S. 374, 392 (2016); Direct Marketing, 575 U.S. at 14.

Extending Rooker-Feldman to non-final state-court

decisions cannot be squared with the Court’s efforts to

clarify and simplify jurisdictional rules. Almost by definition, a jurisdictional rule that arises solely from a negative

inference is not clear. Cf. Bowe v. United States, No. 245348, slip op. 16 (Jan. 9, 2026); INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S.

289, 299 (2001); Cipollone v. Liggett Group, Inc., 505 U.S.

504, 547 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting). And extending the

reach of such a rule is particularly problematic in the context of broad jurisdictional statutes such as those that provide the district courts with original jurisdiction. As the

Court recently explained in Bowe, where Congress has

enacted a “broad grant of jurisdiction,” it “must speak

clearly if it seeks to impose exceptions to that jurisdiction.” Slip op. 8. To extend Rooker-Feldman beyond the

text of Section 1257 would create the “kind of jurisdiction

stripping by implication that cannot suffice.” Id. at 16.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is also notoriously complicated and has confused lower courts for decades. Still,

the doctrine has at least an arguable textual basis in Section 1257 as a negative inference from the grant of appellate jurisdiction to this Court when applied to final decisions of state courts of last resort. See pp. 29-31, supra.

That textual hook provides lower courts with at least some

guidance as to when the doctrine should apply. But if the

Court were to extend the doctrine beyond the text of Section 1257, it would become free-floating and engender

needless confusion about how it should apply. There is no

sound reason to extend the doctrine where the statutory

text does not support it.

3. Nor is an expansive conception of Rooker-Feldman necessary to protect federalism interests: other doctrines already exist to address concerns about competing

federal-court and state-court proceedings.

To begin with, the doctrine of claim preclusion forecloses “successive litigation of the very same claim,

whether or not relitigation of the claim raises the same

issues as the earlier suit.” Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880,

892 (2008) (citation omitted). Accordingly, once a plaintiff

prevails in a suit, the defendant cannot raise “defenses he

might have interposed, or did interpose, in the first action.” Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 18 (1982)

(Restatement).

Closely related, the doctrine of issue preclusion “precludes a party from relitigating an issue actually decided

in a prior case and necessary to the judgment.” Lucky

Brand Dungarees, Inc. v. Marcel Fashions Group, Inc.,

590 U.S. 405, 411 (2020). It generally applies any time (1)

“an issue of fact or law is actually litigated or determined”

(2) “by a valid and final judgment”; (3) “the determination

is essential to the judgment”; and (4) “the determination

is conclusive in a subsequent action between the parties,

whether or the same or different claim.” Restatement

§ 27. Unlike claim preclusion, issue preclusion applies

even if “the issue recurs in the context of a different

claim.” Taylor, 553 U.S. at 892.

Those rules will prevent federal courts from granting

relief from a state-court judgment in all but the narrowest

of circumstances. In most States, if a case has been litigated to judgment in a state trial court, the law of preclusion will bar further litigation of any issue that was or

could have been raised in that court. See O’Brien v. Hanover Insurance Co., 692 N.E.2d 39, 44 (Mass. 1998). In

addition, the rules strictly limiting the grounds on which

a party can collaterally attack a judgment would prevent

most second-guessing of the judgment by a federal court.

See, e.g., Restatement §§ 69-72. Applying Rooker-Feldman to a state trial-court judgment thus creates an unnecessary—and unnecessarily jurisdictional—redundancy.

Notably, the full-faith-and-credit statute, 28 U.S.C.

1738, requires a federal court to apply the preclusion law

of the State where judgment was entered. Under that

statute, a federal court must “give the same preclusive effect to a state-court judgment as another court of that

State would give.” Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 282 (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted). As a result, the

law of the State of the judgment-entering court governs

the preclusive effect of a state-court judgment. See, e.g.,

Parsons Steel, Inc. v. First Alabama Bank, 474 U.S. 518,

523 (1986); Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 95 (1980). Accordingly, each State may decide what preclusive effect

their judgments should have, rather than being restricted

by a one-size-fits-all doctrine of federal jurisdiction like

Rooker-Feldman. See Lance, 546 U.S. at 466.

Separately, abstention doctrines also provide protection against attempts to circumvent the ability of state

courts definitively to resolve pending cases. Younger abstention, for example, precludes (1) “federal intrusion into

ongoing state criminal prosecutions,” (2) “certain civil enforcement proceedings,” and (3) “pending civil proceedings involving certain orders uniquely in furtherance of

the state courts’ ability to perform their judicial functions.” Sprint Communications, Inc. v. Jacobs, 571 U.S.

69, 78 (2013) (internal quotation marks, citation, and alteration omitted). Colorado River abstention, meanwhile,

enables a federal court to abstain from exercising its jurisdiction in an even more flexible set of circumstances in

the interest of “wise judicial administration.” See Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States,

424 U.S. 800, 818 (1976). Those and other abstention doctrines enable a federal court to avoid interference with

state-court proceedings even before a final judgment is

entered.

Preclusion and abstention have significant benefits

over Rooker-Feldman. For one thing, those doctrines do

not come with the consequences attached to the jurisdictional bar of Rooker-Feldman. Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at

292-293; see p. 38, supra. They are also more flexible: for

example, abstention requires the balancing of competing

interests, and various abstention doctrines take into account different prudential considerations. See, e.g., Colorado River, 424 U.S. at 818-821; Middlesex County Ethics

Committee v. Garden State Bar Association, 457 U.S.

423, 432 (1984). As for preclusion, it may not apply (depending on the content of state law) where a party lacked

a full and fair opportunity to litigate a claim or issue in the

earlier litigation. See Kremer v. Chemical Construction

Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 480 & n.22 (1982). That flexibility is a

feature, not a bug: the non-jurisdictional nature of those

doctrines allows them to account for prudential considerations that jurisdictional doctrines cannot, and it ensures

that a court need not address the doctrines where no

party raises them. There is no benefit to expanding

Rooker-Feldman to eliminate that flexibility in cases

where state-court proceedings remain pending.

In the end, there is no good reason to apply RookerFeldman to state-court decisions that are subject to further review in state court. Doing so would amount to an

expansion of the doctrine beyond the facts of Rooker and

Feldman, and it would be inconsistent with the statutory

basis for the doctrine in Section 1257. Given the confusion

the doctrine has long caused; this Court’s objective of ensuring that jurisdictional rules are clear and firmly rooted

in statutory text; and the availability of other doctrines to

prevent unwarranted federal-court intrusion into state litigation, Rooker-Feldman should not apply to non-final

state-court decisions.

II. IN THE ALTERNATIVE, THE ROOKER-FELDMAN

DOCTRINE SHOULD BE OVERRULED

If the Court were to conclude that Rooker-Feldman

would otherwise apply to non-final state-court decisions,

the Court should consider eliminating the doctrine altogether.

1. Rooker-Feldman rests on a clearly erroneous interpretation of Section 1257. Nothing in the text of Section 1257 indicates that Congress intended impliedly to

deprive the district courts of jurisdiction over cases they

would otherwise have the power to adjudicate. The statute simply states that this Court has jurisdiction over

judgments of state courts of last resort that sufficiently

implicate a federal question. That language does not support the negative inference on which the doctrine is based.

Overlapping subject-matter jurisdiction is a routine

feature of our judicial system. “[F]ederal courts and state

courts often find themselves exercising concurrent jurisdiction over the same subject matter.” Growe v. Emison,

507 U.S. 25, 32 (1993). Lower federal courts also regularly

exercise original jurisdiction in cases where the Constitution provides this Court with original jurisdiction. See

Ames v. Kansas ex rel. Johnston, 111 U.S. 449, 469 (1884).

In Rooker, the Court attempted to explain the jurisdictional bar it created by drawing a distinction between

this Court’s appellate jurisdiction and the district courts’

“strictly original” jurisdiction. 263 U.S. at 415-416. But

the Court never explained why the district court there

would have needed appellate jurisdiction in order to adjudicate the challenge before it. And in Exxon Mobil, the

Court made clear that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine

arises from the preclusive effect of Section 1257 in cases

that a district court would “otherwise be empowered to

adjudicate,” 544 U.S. at 291—meaning that the doctrine is

not based on any defect with a district court’s original jurisdiction independent of the negative inference from Section 1257.

The Rooker Court also conflated doctrines of preclusion and subject-matter jurisdiction, explaining that any

errors in the adjudication of the plaintiffs’ constitutional

challenges to the state-court judgment would “not make

the judgment void” and subject to collateral attack. 263

U.S. at 415. Instead, the state court’s determination

would have constituted an “effective and conclusive adjudication” of the case. Ibid. In more modern terms, the

judgment was “res judicata on collateral attack made by

one of the parties.” Willy v. Coastal Corp., 503 U.S. 131,

137 (1992). Yet the Court proceeded to treat preclusion

as a jurisdictional issue. While the Court may have been

fuzzier about that distinction in the past, it is now clear

that preclusion is “not a jurisdictional matter.” Exxon

Mobil, 544 U.S. at 293.

The Court’s decision in Feldman supplies no better rationale for the doctrine. As already explained, the parties

in that case agreed that the district court would have

lacked jurisdiction if the D.C. Court of Appeals’ waiver determinations had been judicial in nature, and the Court

engaged in no extended analysis when accepting that

premise. See pp. 24-25.

2. Nor can Rooker-Feldman be rescued by the doctrine of stare decisis. Even “decades after its inception,”

Rooker-Feldman has remained “impressionistic and malleable” and has yet to foster a workable rule. Loper

Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 408, 410

(2024). After the Court attempted to return the doctrine

to its original scope in Exxon Mobil, some understood the

doctrine to have been “interred.” Lance, 546 U.S. at 468

(Stevens, J., dissenting); see Samuel Bray, Rooker Feldman (1923-2006), 9 Green Bag 2d 317, 317-318 (2006). But

the doctrine continued to be applied with frequency. See

pp. 36-37, supra. Even since Exxon Mobil, the lower

courts have emphasized the continuing need for clarity regarding the doctrine, see ibid., suggesting that the doctrine is “incapable of principled application.” Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1, 49 (2023) (Thomas, J., dissenting).

Nor do reliance interests counsel in favor of maintaining Rooker-Feldman. Congress legislates in response to

“[o]nly a miniscule portion of the jurisdictional decisions

rendered by the courts,” F. Andrew Hessick, The Common Law of Federal Question Jurisdiction, 60 Ala. L.

Rev. 895, 939 (2009), and is thus unlikely to have acted in

reliance on Rooker. For decades, Congress and the lower

courts have “been on notice” of the Court’s efforts to rein

in Rooker-Feldman. Janus v. State, County & Municipal

Employees, 585 U.S. 878, 927 (2018). And because the

doctrine does not govern “the way in which parties order

their affairs,” it has created minimal—if any—reliance interests for litigants. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223,

233 (2009). Indeed, as already explained, other doctrines

serve the same purposes as Rooker-Feldman. See pp. 4043.

To be sure, stare decisis can apply to a decision holding that a procedural rule is jurisdictional in nature. See

Wilkins, 598 U.S. at 159-160. But it also carries less

weight when applied to a “rule of procedure that does not

alter primary conduct.” Hohn v. United States, 524 U.S.

236, 252 (1998); see, e.g., Pearson, 555 U.S. at 233. And

even statutory stare decisis, to the extent it applies here,

“is not absolute.” Allen, 599 U.S. at 42 (Kavanaugh, J.,

concurring).

At bottom, Rooker-Feldman has been a notorious

source of vexation for courts and litigants alike. Although

petitioner believes it is unnecessary to overrule the doctrine in order to reverse the judgment below, the Court

should not hesitate to do so if it were to conclude that the

doctrine cannot be cabined.

CONCLUSION

The judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed.

Respectfully submitted.

RAY M. SHEPARD

SHEPARD LAW FIRM

122 Riviera Drive

Pasadena, MD 21122

JANUARY 2026

KANNON K. SHANMUGAM

WILLIAM T. MARKS

ANNA J. LUCARDI

MATTHEW J. DISLER

MIKAELA MILLIGAN

KRISTA A. STAPLEFORD

PAUL, WEISS, RIFKIND,

WHARTON & GARRISON LLP

2001 K Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 223-7300

kshanmugam@paulweiss.com

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.