Margaret Jackson v. Sheri Blevins

442 F. App'x 466

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: October 4, 2011
• Docket: 11-11001
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Margaret Jackson and Terry Austin, proceeding pro se, 1 appeal the district court’s dismissal of their action to appeal a state court dismissal for failure to state a claim. Appellants’ brief on appeal makes only a passing reference to the reasons for the district court’s dismissal, namely the lack of subject matter jurisdiction, preclusion by res judicata, and the Rooker-Feld-man doctrine. After review, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. 2

Under the Roolcer-Feldman doctrine, federal district courts and courts of appeal lack subject matter jurisdiction “over certain matters related to previous state court litigation.” See Goodman ex rel. Goodman v. Sipos, 259 F.3d 1327, 1332 (11th Cir.2001). The doctrine applies in “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 Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 1521-22, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005).

Appellants instituted this action in the federal district court as a “Notice of Appeal” of the state court’s order and sought to have the district court review and reverse the state court’s order dismissing the case. There was no basis for either federal question jurisdiction or diversity jurisdiction. Moreover, the Rook-er-Feldman doctrine prevented the district court from exercising subject matter jurisdiction over Appellants’ claims because they were the “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.” Saudi Basic Indus., 125 S.Ct. at 1521-22. The district court did not err in dismissing Appellants’ case for lack of jurisdiction.

AFFIRMED.

1 . "Pro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by attorneys and will, therefore, be liberally construed.” Tannenbaum v. United States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir.1998).

2 . We review de novo a district court’s determination that Rooker-Feldman deprives it of subject matter jurisdiction. Doe v. Florida Bar, 630 F.3d 1336, 1340 (11th Cir.2011).