USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 1 of 21
PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 24-1707
T.M.; J.M.; A.M.,
Plaintiffs – Appellants,
v.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL SYSTEM CORPORATION; BALTIMORE WASHINGTON MEDICAL CENTER INCORPORATED; KATHLEEN MCCOLLUM, in her official capacity as President and CEO of Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Inc.; THOMAS J. CUMMINGS, JR., in his personal and official capacity as a medical professional at Baltimore Washington Medical Center, Inc.,
Defendants – Appellees,
and
BE-LIVE-IT THERAPY LLC, trading as Family Intervention Partners; ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, operating as the Anne Arundel Crisis Intervention Team,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Stephanie A. Gallagher, District Judge. (1:23-cv-01684-SAG)
Argued: March 20, 2025 Decided: June 4, 2025
Before WYNN, RICHARDSON, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with instructions. Judge Heytens wrote the opinion, which Judge Wynn and Judge Richardson joined. USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 2 of 21
ARGUED: Ray M. Shepard, THE SHEPARD LAW FIRM, LLC, Pasadena, Maryland, for Appellants. Mark S. Saudek, GALLAGHER EVELIUS & JONES LLP, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Ella R. Aiken, Rose C.A. Woolson, GALLAGHER EVELIUS & JONES LLP, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellees.
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TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge:
In 2005, the Supreme Court warned that lower courts had wrongly “construed” the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine “to extend far beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman
cases.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 283 (2005). This
Court got the message: In the two decades since, we have never, “in a published opinion,
held that a district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine.” Thana v. Board of License Comm’rs for Charles Cnty., 827 F.3d 314, 320
(4th Cir. 2016); see also Jonathan R. by Dixon v. Justice, 41 F.4th 316, 340 (4th Cir. 2022).
That streak ends today. While remaining mindful of the need to avoid “overriding
Congress’ conferral of federal-court jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised by
state courts,” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 283, we conclude this case is too much like Rooker to
justify a different result.
We affirm the district court’s judgment dismissing plaintiff T.M.’s claims for lack
of subject matter jurisdiction and the other two plaintiffs’ claims for failure to state a claim
on which relief may be granted. We do, however, vacate the district court’s dismissal of
T.M.’s claims with prejudice and remand with instructions to modify the judgment to
dismiss those claims without prejudice.
I.
The complaint alleges that T.M. has a medical condition that “causes changes in
[her] mental status upon ingesting any amount of gluten” and can result in “episodes of
psychosis.” JA 19–20. After one such episode in 2023, T.M. was taken to the emergency
room at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. Although T.M. and her father asked to
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have T.M. voluntarily admitted to the facility, T.M. was involuntarily committed after an
administrative hearing.
T.M.’s treating psychiatrist sought permission to forcibly inject T.M. with
antipsychotic medication, which required approval from a clinical review panel. The panel
approved the psychiatrist’s request, and a Maryland administrative law judge affirmed the
panel’s decision after a hearing. Seeking to avoid forcible injection and secure her release
from involuntary commitment, T.M. filed several lawsuits in state and federal court.
Among them was a habeas action filed in Maryland state court.
While that habeas action was ongoing, T.M. and the medical center reached an oral
agreement to release T.M. so long as she abided by certain conditions. That oral agreement
was reflected in a written document that the judge in the habeas action signed and entered
as a consent order. The consent order provided for T.M.’s immediate release from the
medical center but required her to switch psychiatrists, continue taking medications
prescribed by the hospital, and dismiss with prejudice her other lawsuits against the
medical center and its employees. The consent order also directed T.M.’s parents (plaintiffs
A.M. and J.M.) to encourage T.M. to take her medications and notify a particular mental
health facility and a county mental health crisis team if she stopped doing so. The consent
order was entered in the habeas action, and T.M. was then released.
Ten days after the state court entered the consent order, T.M. and her parents filed
this lawsuit in federal court claiming “that the ‘Consent Order’ ” is “unconstitutional,
unenforceable, and void ab initio.” JA 48. The complaint asserts that “[t]he conditions to
which T.M. was forced to agree to obtain her freedom in the ‘Consent Order’ are patently
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unconstitutional,” and that “[e]nforcement of the ‘Consent Order’ in this case would
require the State court to continue to deprive T.M. of her most fundamental right”: “to
determine what shall be done with [her] own body.” JA 45, 47. It further alleges that T.M.’s
agreed to the consent order “under duress.” JA 44. The prayer for relief reads in full:
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs pray that this Honorable Court grant the following relief:
a) Declare that the “Consent Order” violates the Maryland Declaration of Rights and the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and is therefore unconstitutional, unenforceable, and void ab initio; and
b) Declare further that the “Consent Order” is also void and unenforceable because it was obtained under duress while T.M. faced the prospect of further unlawful confinement and forced injections of antipsychotic drugs; and
c) Grant preliminary and permanent injunctive relief preventing enforcement of the “Consent Order;” and
d) Grant any other further relief that this Honorable Court deems to be just and proper.
JA 48–49.
The district court dismissed the complaint. The court determined that T.M.’s claims
were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and that it thus lacked subject matter
jurisdiction over them. The court concluded the parents’ claims failed on the merits because
“they have failed to state plausible claims for relief in their Complaint.” JA 110. The court
dismissed T.M.’s claims with prejudice and the parents’ claims without prejudice.
II.
The district court correctly dismissed T.M.’s claims for lack of subject matter
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jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
A.
The Constitution creates “one supreme Court” and grants it “appellate Jurisdiction”
over particular categories of cases “with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as
the Congress shall make.” U.S. Const. art. III, §§ 1, 2. The Supreme Court’s appellate
jurisdiction includes the ability to review state court judgments. See, e.g., Martin v.
Hunter’s Lessee, 14 U.S. 304, 327–60 (1816). That power is codified in 28 U.S.C.
§ 1257(a), which says the Supreme Court “may . . . review[ ]” “[f]inal judgments or decrees
rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had” in situations
“where any title, right, privilege, or immunity is specially set up or claimed under the
[Federal] Constitution.”
In contrast, Article III neither creates lower federal courts nor describes the nature
or scope of their jurisdiction. For that reason—at least as a general matter—lower federal
courts “can have no jurisdiction but such as [a] statute confers.” Sheldon v. Sill, 49 U.S.
441, 449 (1850). Congress has given federal district courts “original jurisdiction” over
“civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States,”
28 U.S.C. § 1331, and federal courts of appeals “jurisdiction” to hear “appeals from all
final decisions of the district courts of the United States,” § 1291. It has also given district
courts appellate jurisdiction over various orders by bankruptcy courts. See § 158(a). But
no federal statute “authorize[s] district courts to exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-
court judgments,” even those that raise issues of—or are alleged to violate—federal law.
Verizon Md., Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U.S. 635, 644 n.3 (2002).
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The Rooker-Feldman doctrine reflects and preserves that distribution of authority
between the Supreme Court and lower federal courts. In Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263
U.S. 413 (1923), the plaintiff asked a federal district court to “declare[]” that an Indiana
state court’s judgment was “null and void” because it had been “rendered and affirmed in
contravention of ” the Federal Constitution. Id. at 414–15. The district court ruled it lacked
jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s claim, and the Supreme Court affirmed. See id. at 415–17.
The Court explained that, under the federal jurisdictional statutes, “no court of the United
States other than this court could entertain a proceeding to reverse or modify the [state-
court] judgment” because “[t]o do so would be an exercise of appellate jurisdiction.” Id. at
416; see Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 463 (2006) (per curiam) (describing Rooker as
viewing the plaintiff’s request for relief as “tantamount to an appeal of the Indiana Supreme
Court decision”).
Similarly, in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462
(1983), two plaintiffs argued that the District of Columbia’s highest court violated the
Federal Constitution by denying their requests to be admitted to the D.C. bar without
having attended an approved law school. See id. at 468–69 & n.3, 472. The Supreme Court
held that “to the extent that” the plaintiffs were asking a federal district court to “review”
the D.C. court’s “denial of their petitions for waiver,” the district court “lacked subject
matter jurisdiction” because “[r]eview of such determinations c[ould] be obtained only in
[the Supreme] Court.” Id. at 476, 482.
Over time, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine “lent itself to broad expansion.” RLR
Investments, LLC v. City of Pigeon Forge, 4 F.4th 380, 385 (6th Cir. 2021). Lower federal
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courts (including this one) applied Rooker-Feldman “as a one-size-fits-all preclusion
doctrine,” dismissing suits “whenever state court decisions and federal court decisions
potentially or actually overlap[ped].” Behr v. Campbell, 8 F.4th 1206, 1208 (11th Cir.
2021) (first quote); RLR Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 385 (quotation marks removed)
(second quote). In so doing, the doctrine “became a quasi-magical means of docket-
clearing.” Stephen I. Vladeck, The Increasingly “Unflagging Obligation”: Federal
Jurisdiction After Saudi Basic and Anna Nicole, 42 Tulsa L. Rev. 553, 563 (2007).
In Exxon, the Supreme Court ordered a course correction. The Rooker-Feldman
doctrine, the Court explained, is not a “preclusion doctrine,” nor does it “stop a district
court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction simply because a party attempts to litigate
a matter previously litigated in state court.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284, 293. Instead, the Court
emphasized, the doctrine “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.
B.
This case bears an uncanny resemblance to Rooker. Here—as in Rooker—T.M. sued
in federal district court complaining about a state court judgment. Compare JA 48–49, with
Rooker, 263 U.S. at 414. Here—as in Rooker—T.M. argued that the state court judgment
itself violated the Federal Constitution. Compare JA 48, with Rooker, 263 U.S. at 414–15.
And here—as in Rooker—T.M. asked a federal district court to declare the state court
judgment “void” and “unenforceable.” JA 48; see Rooker, 263 U.S. at 414 (plaintiff asked
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the federal district court to declare the state court judgment “null and void”). This case thus
appears to present the “paradigm situation in which Rooker-Feldman precludes a federal
district court from proceeding.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 293 (quotation marks removed).
This case also lacks any of the circumstances that led the Supreme Court to hold
that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not apply in Exxon. To begin, here—unlike in
Exxon—T.M. filed the relevant federal suit after the state court judgment she seeks to
challenge had been entered. Compare JA 16 (stating that the consent order was entered 10
days before the complaint was filed), with Exxon, 544 U.S. at 289 (noting that the federal
court action was filed more than two years before the state court’s judgment). That
difference matters. As Exxon explained, “neither Rooker nor Feldman supports the notion
that properly invoked concurrent jurisdiction” of state and federal courts “vanishes if a
state court reaches judgment on the same or related question while the case remains sub
judice in a federal court.” 544 U.S. at 292. But here—as in Rooker and Feldman—the
“state-court judgment[]” T.M. asked the federal district court to enjoin was “rendered
before the district court proceedings commenced.” Id. at 284.
Just as important, T.M. has gone to federal court seeking “to undo” a state court
judgment. Exxon, 544 U.S. at 293. Unlike the plaintiff in Exxon, T.M. did not sue in federal
court because she sought to “protect [herself] in the event [she] lost in state court on
grounds (such as the state statute of limitations) that might not preclude relief in the federal
venue.” Id. at 294. Nor did T.M. ask a federal court to relitigate issues that were previously
decided in state court—a situation Exxon instructs is properly addressed via “principles of
preclusion” rather than lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Id. at 293 (quotation marks
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removed). Instead, T.M. “invit[ed] district court review and rejection” of a state court
judgment, id. at 284, by asking the district court to declare the state court’s order
“unconstitutional, unenforceable, and void ab initio” and to “[g]rant preliminary and
permanent injunctive relief preventing [its] enforcement,” JA 48. That is what Rooker,
Feldman, and Exxon all say federal district courts lack the authority to do.
C.
T.M. does not meaningfully dispute anything we just said. Instead, she makes two
sets of arguments. First, T.M. insists that three of the four conditions that Exxon identified
for invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine are absent here. Second, T.M. seeks to expand
the Exxon Court’s statement of its own holding. We are not persuaded by either set of
arguments.
1.
As previously noted, Exxon held that “[t]he Rooker-Feldman doctrine . . . is
confined to cases” possessing four characteristics: those “[1] brought by state-court losers
[2] complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments [3] rendered before the district
court proceedings commenced and [4] inviting district court review and rejection of those
judgments.” 544 U.S. at 284. T.M. never denies that the third requirement is satisfied here,
and it plainly is given the timing of the two actions. And despite T.M.’s contrary assertions,
we conclude the other three requirements are satisfied too.
Exxon’s first requirement is satisfied because T.M. is a “state-court loser” for
purposes of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284.
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First, we agree with the Seventh Circuit that T.M.’s status as a state court loser is
not altered because the state court judgment she attacks is a consent order rather than one
entered after an adversarial proceeding. A consent order “is a judgment for purposes of
Rooker-Feldman.” Johnson v. Orr, 551 F.3d 564, 568 (7th Cir. 2008); accord Wright &
Miller, 18A Fed. Prac. & Proc. Juris. § 4443 (3d ed. 2025). This is because a consent order
“transform[s]” a private settlement agreement “into a judgment” that governs the parties’
future relationship with the force of judicial authority rather than merely as a matter of
contract. Wright & Miller § 4443 & n.1. And when a litigant claims to have been “injured
by [an] agreed order,” asserts “that the state court’s judgment was in error,” and asks a
federal district court to “overturn” that order, that litigant is a state court loser for Rooker-
Feldman purposes. Johnson, 551 F.3d at 569.
We are satisfied this is the correct result because T.M. has available to her the same
state court remedies as any other state court loser. If T.M. wishes to challenge the legality
of the consent order, she can “ask the [state courts] to set” it “aside.” Johnson, 551 F.3d at
569. Maryland law would have permitted T.M. to ask the state habeas court to set aside the
consent order, see Md. R. 3-535(b), and to appeal that order if the state habeas court
declined to do so, see Pettiford v. Next Generation Tr. Serv., 226 A.3d 15, 27 (Md. 2020). 1
If those efforts proved unsuccessful, T.M. could seek review from the Supreme Court.
1 These possibilities are not hypothetical. After filing this suit in federal court, T.M. also appealed the consent order to the Appellate Court of Maryland before seeking and obtaining a stay of that appeal pending the outcome of this one. As far as we know, that appeal remains pending. 11 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 12 of 21
See 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a). What T.M. may not do, however, is “avoid Rooker-Feldman
simply by bypassing [the] state court[s].” Johnson, 551 F.3d at 569.
Our decision in Del Webb Communities, Inc. v. Carlson, 817 F.3d 867 (4th Cir.
2016), is not to the contrary. In that case, two buyers sued a seller in state court. Id. at 869.
After the seller successfully moved to compel arbitration, the buyers filed a demand for
class arbitration. Id. at 869–70. Before that question was resolved, the seller filed a suit in
federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that the parties had not agreed to class
arbitration. Id. at 870. We held that the seller was “not the state-court loser” because the
only motion the seller ever filed in state court “was ultimately granted” and the federal
court suit did “not challenge the state court decision.” Id. at 872. In other words, the seller’s
federal suit neither asserted that any state court judgment was wrong nor sought to restrain
the operation of any state court judgment. Here, by contrast, T.M. asserts that a preexisting
state court judgment that she no longer wishes to be bound by is unconstitutional and asks
a federal district court to enjoin its operation.
Second, we reject T.M.’s argument that she is not a state court loser because she
“won in the [Maryland] Circuit Court on January 3, 2024 when Judge Pamela Albin ruled”
that the medical center should not have involuntarily committed her in the first
place. T.M. Br. 34. True, that ruling was a state court win. But that order is not the one
T.M. now asserts is unconstitutional and asks a federal court to enjoin, nor was it even
entered in the same underlying state court action. Instead, that order was entered in a
different case, almost six months after the consent order that T.M. asked the district court
to enjoin. Winning a different lawsuit whose result is not challenged here does not
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transform T.M. into a state court winner in the case whose outcome she now seeks to attack.
We thus conclude Exxon’s first requirement is satisfied.
We have largely explained why Exxon’s second and fourth requirements are
satisfied—that is, why T.M. is “complaining of injuries caused by” a state court judgment
and seeks “district court review and rejection of” that judgment. Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284.
The complaint asserts that “[t]he Consent Order”—not the defendants’ conduct or even the
underlying oral agreement—“imposes clearly unconstitutional limits on T.M.’s ability to
control her own healthcare forever.” JA 13; accord JA 45, 46 & n.9 (asserting that “the
‘Consent Order’” forces T.M. “to continue to take the antipsychotic drug cocktails
prescribed for her by” one of the named defendants, “purports to control T.M.’s healthcare
decisions,” and “effectively restricts T.M.’s ability to travel”). And although it may
sometimes be difficult to determine whether a plaintiff is asking a district court to “review
and reject[ ]” a state court judgment, Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284, “there’s no complexity when
the litigant directly asks a federal district court to declare a state-court order to be
unconstitutional and enjoin its enforcement,” RLR Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 388
(quotation marks removed). That is what T.M. has done here by asking the district court to
“[d]eclare” that the consent order “violates the Maryland Declaration of Rights and the
Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” and “[g]rant preliminary and permanent
injunctive relief preventing [its] enforcement.” JA 48.
On appeal, T.M. insists that this suit is really about injuries inflicted by the medical
center rather than the consent order. That claim cannot be squared with the language of
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T.M.’s complaint, which is the document we examine to determine the source of a
plaintiff’s alleged injury and whether they seek review of a state court judgment. See RLR
Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 388. If this complaint were truly directed at injuries that have
been or will be caused by the medical center, we would expect it to seek remedies
addressing those harms, including damages or an injunction forbidding the medical
center’s employees from taking some further action. But the complaint here never
“requests” any such forms of “relief.” Id. Instead, aside from a concluding request for “any
other further relief that this Honorable Court deems to be just and proper,” the complaint
seeks three forms of declaratory and injunctive relief directed against “the ‘Consent
Order’ ” and its “enforcement.” JA 48–49. 2 Granting such relief would require enjoining
the operation of the state court judgment—the precise remedy T.M. seeks to disclaim on
appeal.
Shifting gears, T.M. also argues that this suit “seek[s] relief from a state
administrative agency’s determination that she could be lawfully committed involuntarily
to [the medical center] under Maryland law.” T.M. Br. 18. To be sure, the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine would not have barred such a suit because state administrative decisions are
“subject to challenge in an independent federal action” even if there is also a concurrent
2 In contrast, T.M. filed two other federal court actions that sought damages from the medical center. The first suit was filed before the consent order was entered and was voluntarily dismissed as required by the consent order. See Doe v. University of Md. Med. Sys., Corp., No. 23-cv-01572 (D. Md. complaint filed June 9, 2023). The second suit was filed after the consent decree was entered and was dismissed by a different federal district court judge for failure to state a claim. See Doe v. University of Md. Med. Sys. Corp., No. 23-cv-03318, 2024 WL 4236671 (D. Md. Sept. 18, 2024).
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state action seeking review of that same administrative decision. Thana, 827 F.3d at 320–
21. 3 But for reasons that should be familiar by now, this suit is not such a “concurrent,
independent action.” Id. at 321. The complaint that the district court dismissed under the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not ask the court to review any state administrative action,
nor did it ask the district court to provide any remedy directed at the state agency. Once
again, T.M.’s arguments on appeal cannot be squared with the language of her complaint.
We thus hold that Exxon’s second and fourth requirements are satisfied.
2.
T.M.’s remaining arguments are not based on any of the four criteria the Supreme
Court listed when describing its own holding in Exxon. See 544 U.S. at 284. Instead, T.M.’s
final two arguments seek to restrict the applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
beyond Exxon’s stated parameters. We are not persuaded by either argument.
T.M. insists that Rooker-Feldman does not apply because the doctrine is limited to
suits where a federal court is asked to “exercise appellate jurisdiction over a final judgment
from the highest court of a State in which the decision could be had” and there is no such
judgment here. T.M. Br. 27 (quotation marks removed). In support of that argument, T.M.
points to the Supreme Court’s statement in Exxon that “[i]n both [Rooker and Feldman]
the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended,”
3 Indeed, T.M.’s first federal action also sought review of the state administrative judge’s order affirming the clinical review panel’s decision approving forcible injections. See note 2, supra (describing earlier federal court suits).
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544 U.S. at 291, and dicta in one of our published opinions stating that “if ” we were to
“apply strictly” one clause from one sentence in Exxon, “we would conclude that” the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine is limited in the way T.M. proposes, Thana, 827 F.3d at 321
(emphasis added). 4 But Thana never answered that question, so it remains open for us. See
827 F.3d at 322–23 (listing five “reasons supporting [the Court’s] conclusion” and
identifying a different one as “more fundamental”). Having carefully considered the
matter—and acknowledging the contrary views of other circuits—we agree with the Sixth
and Eighth Circuits that Rooker-Feldman is not limited to situations when a federal court
plaintiff no longer has any recourse within the state system. See RLR Investments, LLC,
4 F.4th at 389–95; Parker Law Firm v. Travelers Indem. Co., 985 F.3d 579, 584 (8th Cir.
2021); see also RLR Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 391–92 & n.6 (citing decisions reaching
other views).
As noted several times already, the Exxon Court outlined the requirements for
invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine at the beginning of its opinion in language prefaced
by the words “we hold.” 544 U.S. at 284. And when it did so, the Court did not say that the
doctrine applied only to judgments issued by state high courts or judgments for which no
4 T.M. errs in twice quoting Jonathan R. by Dixon v. Justice, 41 F.4th 316, 341 (4th Cir. 2022), as saying that the “Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies [only to final] state court decisions, not ongoing state court proceedings.” T.M. Br. 10; see T.M. Reply Br. 4. The bracketed words “only to final” are not contained in either Jonathan or the one- paragraph unpublished decision that Jonathan quotes. Instead, the original language says Rooker-Feldman applies to “state court decisions” rather than “only to final state court decisions.” Jonathan, 41 F.4th at 341 (quoting Jones v. McBride, No. 21-6218, 2022 WL 670873, at *1 (4th Cir. Mar. 7, 2022) (per curiam)).
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further review could be had within the state system—it said “state-court judgments.” Id.;
see RLR Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 392 (noting that the Supreme Court has used the word
“decision” in several post-Exxon cases). In contrast, the language on which T.M. relies
came later in the Court’s opinion, when it summarized Rooker and Feldman and explained
why they both “exhibit the limited circumstances in which” the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
operates. Exxon, 544 U.S. at 291. To be sure, the Court had stated seven pages earlier—in
its “we hold” sentence—that “[t]he Rooker-Feldman doctrine . . . is confined to cases of
the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name.” Id. at 284. But that statement was
immediately followed by a colon, after which the Court explained what it meant. Id. And
as the Supreme Court has explained: “[T]he first rule of case law as well as statutory
interpretation is: Read on.” Arkansas Game & Fish Comm’n v. United States, 568 U.S. 23,
36 (2012). We thus conclude that Exxon does not mandate a stealth fifth requirement for
invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See RLR Investments, LLC, 4 F.4th at 392–94; see
also Lance, 546 U.S. at 464 (quoting Exxon’s “we hold” language verbatim, without listing
any other requirements).
Nor does 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a)—the law that forms part of the basis for the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine—require a different result. True, that statute only gives the Supreme
Court appellate jurisdiction over decisions “rendered by the highest court of a State in
which a decision could be had.” 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a). But the fact that Congress declared
that even our Nation’s “one supreme Court” lacks appellate jurisdiction over state court
decisions from which review may still be had within the State’s own judicial system does
not mean that “inferior [federal] Courts” somehow gain appellate jurisdiction over those
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same decisions. U.S. Const. art. III, § 1. Instead, the combination of Section 1257(a) and
Congress’s failure to give lower federal courts any appellate jurisdiction over state court
judgments means that no federal court has jurisdiction to review such decisions.
See Verizon Md., 535 U.S. at 644 n.3 (“The Rooker-Feldman doctrine merely recognizes
that 28 U.S.C. § 1331 is a grant of original jurisdiction, and does not authorize district
courts to exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, which Congress has
reserved to [the Supreme] Court.”).
T.M.’s final argument is that the portion of the complaint asserting she agreed to the
consent order under duress should survive dismissal because that claim challenges “the
process by which the state court decision[] resulted” rather than “the state court decision[]”
itself. T.M. Br. 24 (quotation marks removed). Here too, we are unpersuaded.
T.M.’s argument leans heavily on the Second Circuit’s decision in Sung Cho v. City
of New York, 910 F.3d 639 (2018). In that case, a group of homeowners and businessowners
sued in federal court, asserting that government attorneys brought state court eviction
actions against them and then coerced them into entering “settlement agreements” waiving
their constitutional rights. Id. at 641, 643–45. The Second Circuit held that the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine did not bar the plaintiffs’ suit, even though “each of the [settlement]
agreements was ‘so-ordered’ by” state court judges without any other “state-court
proceedings.” Id. at 643. The court concluded that the plaintiffs’ injuries had not been
“caused by a state-court judgment”—Exxon’s second requirement—because an
examination of the complaints revealed that the injuries about which the plaintiffs
18 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 19 of 21
complained flowed from “the agreements themselves and the conduct that led to them—
not the judgments so-ordered by the state court.” Id. at 646.
This case differs in critical respects. Unlike in Sung Cho, T.M.’s complaint does not
allege that the parties ever signed a settlement agreement that became “legally binding”
before and absent any court order, Sung Cho, 910 F.3d at 647, nor did T.M. attach any such
document to the complaint. And despite a single reference to an “agreement,” JA 46, we
conclude that T.M.’s complaint cannot plausibly be read as attacking a settlement
agreement that exists independently of the consent order.
A comparison between the remedies requested in Sung Cho and this case clinches
the point. In Sung Cho, the homeowners asked the federal district court to grant relief
against the “defendants” by “enjoin[ing] [them] from enforcing the [settlement]
agreements, to declare the ‘agreements exacted’ to be ‘unconstitutional, invalid, and
unenforceable,’ and to award nominal damages.” 910 F.3d at 643–44. Here, in contrast, the
only specific forms of relief requested in T.M.’s complaint all would act directly on “the
‘Consent Order’” entered by the state habeas court. JA 48. We thus hold that the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine bars the claims pled in T.M.’s complaint. 5
5 In her reply brief, T.M. insists that—despite what the complaint says—her real injury is “the coerced loss of her constitutional rights,” which “arose from the settlement agreement itself.” T.M. Reply Br. 4 (emphasis removed). But any suit seeking to remedy harms T.M. has already suffered would have to be for damages, not an injunction, see City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 105 (1983), and—unlike the complaint in Sung Cho—the one we are reviewing here does not seek damages. As noted previously, T.M. filed two other complaints that did seek damages. See note 2, supra.
19 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 20 of 21
III.
We turn to the claims brought by T.M.’s parents. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine
does not affect the district court’s jurisdiction over those claims because the parents were
not parties to the state habeas action, and Rooker-Feldman “has no application to a federal
suit brought by a nonparty to the state suit.” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 287. We nonetheless
conclude that the district court correctly dismissed the parents’ claims for failure to state a
claim on which relief can be granted.
As they did before the district court, the parents argue that the consent order violates
their First Amendment rights by compelling their speech. T.M. Br. 37–40. But as the
district court noted, “these allegations—or any facts to support them—are missing from
the [c]omplaint.” JA 110. Although the plaintiffs’ appellate brief block quotes several
paragraphs from the complaint, the quoted language confirms that the complaint never
asserts that the consent order violates the parents’ First Amendment rights. This is unlike
the case around which the plaintiffs build their entire argument on appeal—Johnson v. City
of Shelby, 574 U.S. 10 (2014) (per curiam)—where the complaint expressly alleged
“violations of [the plaintiffs’] Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.” Id. at 10. Thus,
the district court correctly concluded the parents failed to state a claim on which relief can
be granted. 6
6 On appeal, the parents also argue that the complaint stated a valid claim that— regardless of whether the consent order violated their First Amendment rights—it could not be enforced against them because they were not parties to the habeas action. But the district court never considered that question, and, having reviewed the plaintiffs’ opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss, we conclude that the parents never raised (Continued) 20 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1707 Doc: 50 Filed: 06/04/2025 Pg: 21 of 21
* * *
To say that few claims warrant dismissal under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is not
to say that none do, and we conclude that T.M.’s claims fit the bill. That said, because the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine is one “of subject-matter jurisdiction,” Exxon, 544 U.S. at 284,
we vacate in part and remand with instructions to modify the judgment to state that T.M.’s
claims are dismissed without prejudice. See Southern Walk at Broadlands Homeowner’s
Ass’n v. OpenBand at Broadlands, LLC, 713 F.3d 175, 185 (4th Cir. 2013) (“A suit
dismissed for lack of jurisdiction cannot also be dismissed with prejudice” because a
dismissal with prejudice is “a disposition on the merits, which only a court with jurisdiction
may render.” (quotation marks removed)). The judgment is affirmed in all other respects.
SO ORDERED
that as a separate argument before the district court. “[I]f a party wishes to preserve an argument for appeal, the party must press and not merely intimate the argument during the proceedings before the district court.” In re Under Seal, 749 F.3d 276, 287 (4th Cir. 2014) (quotation marks removed).