United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 03-1979
FEDERACIÓN DE MAESTROS DE PUERTO RICO,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
JUNTA DE RELACIONES DEL TRABAJO DE PUERTO RICO,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Lipez, and Howard, Circuit Judges.
Godwin Aldarondo-Girald, with whom Aldarondo-Girald Law Office
was on brief, for appellant.
Carlos E. López López, with whom Llovet, Zurinaga, & López,
P.S.C. was on brief, for appellee.
May 27, 2005
LIPEZ, Circuit Judge. This case requires us to decide
whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies to an interlocutory
jurisdictional decision of the Puerto Rico appellate courts. While
this case was under advisement, the Supreme Court unanimously
decided Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 125 S.
Ct. 1517 (2005), which substantially altered our understanding of
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We must now apply that altered
understanding for the first time.
The present case is not itself complex. Appellant
Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico ("Federación") is the target
of an unfair labor practices grievance before appellee Junta de
Relaciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Labor
Relations Board ("Board"). The Board denied the Federación's
motion to dismiss the grievance on the ground of federal labor law
preemption. The Federación appealed that denial on an
interlocutory basis to the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals and then to
the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. After losing the preemption
argument in the Puerto Rico courts, the Federación filed an action
for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Board in the
United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico. The
district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the
Federación's claim because resolving that claim would require the
court to review the decision of the Puerto Rico courts that the
Board had jurisdiction over the labor dispute, in contravention of
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the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Consequently, the district court
dismissed the complaint. We affirm, and explain how Exxon Mobil
affects some of our prior Rooker-Feldman cases.
I.
The relevant facts and procedural history are undisputed.
In 1990, the Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, a labor
union, filed an unfair labor practices charge before the Board
against the appellant Federación de Maestros de Puerto Rico.1 In
1995, the Board issued a grievance (administrative complaint)
against the Federación. The Federación then moved to dismiss the
grievance on the grounds that the National Labor Relations Board
("NLRB") had exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute.2 It
contended that Puerto Rico labor law was preempted by the National
Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 151-169, because the Federación's
activities affected interstate commerce.3
1
The Federación Puertorriqueña de Trabajadores, though a
critical participant in the proceedings before the Board, is not a
party to the federal action and will not be referred to again.
Consequently, our references to "the Federación" in the remainder
of the opinion refer exclusively to appellant, the Federación de
Maestros de Puerto Rico.
2
The Federación also asserted defenses under Puerto Rico law,
which are not before us.
3
The Act grants the NLRB jurisdiction over charges of unfair
labor practices "affecting commerce," which means interstate
commerce. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 152(6)-(7), 160. That jurisdiction is
exclusive and preempts state labor law. See San Diego Bldg. Trades
Council v. Garmon, 359 U.S. 236, 244-45 (1959). Therefore, if the
Federación's activities affected interstate commerce, the Board
lacked jurisdiction over the grievance.
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In early 1996, an administrative judge issued an
"Interlocutory Report" concluding that Puerto Rico labor law was
preempted by federal law, and that the Board therefore lacked
jurisdiction. However, the Board rejected the Interlocutory Report
and denied the Federación's motion to dismiss.
After unsuccessfully requesting that the Board reconsider
its decision, the Federación filed an interlocutory appeal to the
Puerto Rico Supreme Court. That court referred the appeal to the
Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. In 1997, the Court of Appeals, in a
lengthy opinion and resolution, concluded that the Federación's
activities did not affect interstate commerce, affirmed the Board's
jurisdictional decision, and remanded for further proceedings.
The Federación moved for reconsideration, which was
denied after some delay. It then petitioned the Puerto Rico
Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, which, too, was denied.
The Federación twice requested reconsideration of the denial of
certiorari, and both requests were denied.
In November 1999, the Board issued a resolution ordering
the continuation of the proceedings. In these proceedings, the
Federación continued to argue that the Board lacked jurisdiction.
In March 2003, the Federación filed a complaint against
the Board in federal district court, requesting declaratory relief
and an injunction ordering the Board to terminate its proceedings
for lack of jurisdiction. The Board moved to dismiss the federal
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complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) on the basis that the
district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review a
decision of the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals. The district court
granted the motion, and the Federación timely appealed.
II.
Where no evidentiary hearing has been held, we review de
novo the district court's dismissal for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction. Wang v. N.H. Bd. of Registration in Med., 55 F.3d
698, 700 n.3 (1st Cir. 1995). "[W]e construe the Complaint
liberally and treat all well-pleaded facts as true, according the
plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences." Murphy v.
United States, 45 F.3d 520, 522 (1st Cir. 1995).
Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal district
courts lack jurisdiction over "federal complaints . . . [that]
essentially invite[] federal courts of first instance to review and
reverse unfavorable state-court judgments." Exxon Mobil, 125 S.
Ct. at 1521; D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983);
Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923). At first glance,
this case appears to present a relatively straightforward Rooker-
Feldman issue. The Puerto Rico Court of Appeals held that the
Board has jurisdiction over the underlying labor dispute, and the
Puerto Rico Supreme Court declined to disturb that judgment. The
Federación's federal complaint, however, asks the court to declare
that the Board did not have jurisdiction over the labor dispute.
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Thus, the Federación's complaint asked the district court "to
review and reverse [an] unfavorable state-court judgment[]," Exxon
Mobil, 125 S. Ct. at 1521.
However, the Federación argues that the Puerto Rico
court's decision was interlocutory, and that Rooker-Feldman
therefore does not apply. This argument draws some support from
certain of our pre-Exxon Mobil precedents. In order to understand
this argument, and why we now ultimately reject it, we must first
describe the roots of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the somewhat
uncertain path that our jurisprudence has taken, and finally the
clarification provided by Exxon Mobil.4
A. Rooker and Feldman
The jurisdictional statute providing for Supreme Court
review of state court judgments states that "[f]inal 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" when certain federal questions are presented. 28
U.S.C. § 1257;5 see also id. § 1258 (same for Puerto Rico Supreme
4
Because the district court and the parties frame the dispute
in terms of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we do not reach the
questions of whether alternative doctrines such as abstention under
Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), or refusal to grant
declaratory relief under El Dia, Inc. v. Hernandez Colon, 963 F.2d
488 (1st Cir. 1992), would also have justified dismissal.
5
When Rooker was decided, the Supreme Court's jurisdictional
statute provided for writ of error as well as certiorari, but was
in most relevant respects similar to the present 28 U.S.C. § 1257.
See Act of September 6, 1916, Pub. L. No. 64-258, ch. 448, sec. 2,
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Court).6 Rooker held that Congress, by the terms of that statute,
granted the United States Supreme Court, and only the United States
Supreme Court, jurisdiction over appeals from state courts:
If the constitutional questions stated in the
[federal complaint] actually arose in the
[state case], it was the province and duty of
the state courts to decide them; and their
decision, whether right or wrong, was an
exercise of jurisdiction. . . . Under the
legislation of Congress, no court of the
United States other than this Court could
entertain a proceeding to reverse or modify
the judgment for errors of that character. To
do so would be an exercise of appellate
jurisdiction. The jurisdiction possessed by
the District Courts is strictly original.
263 U.S. at 415-16 (internal citation omitted). In other words,
Rooker is based on a negative inference: because Congress only
provided for review of state court judgments by the Supreme Court,
Congress therefore intended to preclude lower federal courts from
exercising such review. Feldman repeated this reasoning: "[A]
United States District Court has no authority to review final
judgments of a state court in judicial proceedings. Review of such
judgments may be had only in this Court." 460 U.S. at 482.
§ 237, 39 Stat. 726 (1916).
6
In this opinion we will sometimes refer to § 1257 as a
shorthand for, collectively, both §§ 1257 and 1258. The
differences between the two provisions are not relevant to the
issues raised in this case.
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B. Our Pre-Exxon Mobil Cases
1. Relevance of Availability of Supreme Court Review
The close nexus between the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and
Supreme Court review prompts an obvious question: what if the
Supreme Court could not have reviewed the particular state court
decision at issue? Our pre-Exxon Mobil cases suggested that
Rooker-Feldman would not apply in this context. See Cruz v.
Melecio, 204 F.3d 14, 21 n.5 (1st Cir. 2000) (stating, in dictum,
that "denying jurisdiction based on a state court judgment that is
not eligible for review by the United States Supreme Court simply
would not follow from the jurisdictional statute that invigorated
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine in the first place");7 Hill v. Town of
Conway, 193 F.3d 33, 40 (1st Cir. 1999) (because "Rooker-Feldman is
keyed to § 1257," it therefore requires a judgment reviewable by
the Supreme Court). Under this logic, the scope of Rooker-Feldman
would be limited to state court judgments susceptible to Supreme
Court review -- in particular, final judgments, not interlocutory
orders. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1257 (providing for review of "[f]inal
judgments or decrees" rendered by highest state courts), 1258 (same
for Puerto Rico Supreme Court). Arguably, then, under Cruz and
7
Although the statute itself has changed since Rooker was
decided, the changes have not been material to the present issue,
see supra note 5, and the negative inference drawn in Rooker
applies equally today.
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Hill, Rooker-Feldman would not apply to interlocutory orders. That
is the argument that the Federación makes here.
2. Relevance of Preclusive Effect Under State Law
Our pre-Exxon Mobil case law also recognized, albeit not
uniformly, an alternative conception of "final judgment." The law
of claim and issue preclusion (also known as res judicata and
collateral estoppel) provides a notion of "final judgment" that is
related to, but distinct from, finality for purposes of Supreme
Court review.8 We have suggested, in some of our cases, that
"[o]nly a state court adjudication that itself has preclusive
effect can bring the Rooker-Feldman doctrine into play." Cruz, 204
F.3d at 21 n.5; see also Badillo-Santiago v. Naveira-Merly, 378
F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2004) ("Rooker-Feldman applies to state or
territorial court judgments to which the federal courts would
accord preclusive effect, and the federal courts 'can ascribe no
greater preclusive force to a state court judgment than would the
8
The two concepts of finality serve very different purposes.
The purpose of the final judgment rule of § 1257 is to prevent the
Supreme Court from considering a case that has not reached final
judgment. It applies "vertically" within a single case's progress
up through the appellate hierarchy. By contrast, the purpose of
res judicata (and its federal statutory codification, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1738) is to prevent federal and sister state trial courts from
hearing a case that has reached final judgment. It applies
"horizontally" to parallel litigation or collateral attacks.
Moreover, whether a state court judgment is final for purposes
of § 1257 is a question of federal law, Gotthilf v. Sills, 375 U.S.
79, 80 (1963) (per curiam), but whether it is final for purposes of
preclusion is a question of state law, Roy v. City of Augusta, 712
F.2d 1517, 1520 (1st Cir. 1983).
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courts of that state.'") (quoting Cruz, 204 F.3d at 21; internal
citation omitted); Pérez-Guzmán v. Gracia, 346 F.3d 229, 238 n.5
(1st Cir. 2003) (same), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 960 (2004).9
Yet we have also stated, in apparent contradiction to the
above cases, that Rooker-Feldman does not require a decision to
have state law preclusive effect. See Maymó-Meléndez v.
Álvarez-Ramírez, 364 F.3d 27, 32-33 (1st Cir.) (Rooker-Feldman is
"broader and blunter" than res judicata, and does not impose res
judicata's technical requirements, "[s]o, despite the disapproval
of scholars, federal courts regularly use Rooker-Feldman to rebuff
collateral attacks on prior state court judgments without
purporting to apply the technical preclusion rules of res
judicata"), cert. denied, 125 S. Ct. 110 (2004); Mandel v. Town of
Orleans, 326 F.3d 267, 271 (1st Cir. 2003) ("Rooker-Feldman applies
whether or not the federal and state causes of action are
technically the same for purposes of claim preclusion, or whether
all of the familiar conditions for issue preclusion are met.")
(citation omitted); Sheehan v. Marr, 207 F.3d 35, 40 n.5 (1st Cir.
2000) (noting that "res judicata . . . and Rooker-Feldman are
separate doctrines, [although] they have a 'close affinity' to one
9
The "preclusive effect" requirement derives not from
construction of § 1257, but rather from policy considerations. The
most commonly stated rationale for a preclusive effect requirement
is that it would be odd for Rooker-Feldman "to bar an action in
federal court when that same action would be allowed in the state
court of the rendering state." Davis v. Bayless, 70 F.3d 367, 376
(5th Cir. 1995).
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another," and quoting Charchenko v. City of Stillwater, 47 F.3d
981, 983 n.1 (8th Cir. 1995), for the proposition that
"Rooker-Feldman is broader than claim and issue preclusion because
it does not depend on a final judgment on the merits").
C. Exxon Mobil
These tests of state court judgment finality in our
application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine have now been superseded
by the explanation of that doctrine in Exxon Mobil. We briefly
summarize that case for context.
Saudi Basic Industries Corporation sued Exxon Mobil in
Delaware state court for a declaratory judgment that it did not owe
Exxon Mobil any money from a contractual agreement; Exxon Mobil
counterclaimed for the money. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil filed a
declaratory judgment action in federal court as an "insurance
policy" in case it lost the state court lawsuit. The state case
went to judgment first, and the jury found for Exxon Mobil,
awarding it a large verdict on its counterclaim. Saudi Basic
appealed the judgment to the Delaware Supreme Court. See 125 S.
Ct. at 1524-25.
Meanwhile, the federal action proceeded. Exxon Mobil's
claims in federal court were essentially identical to its defenses
and counterclaims in state court. On an interlocutory appeal
related to foreign sovereign immunity, the Third Circuit sua sponte
concluded that Exxon Mobil's claims were identical to claims
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actually litigated in state court, and ordered the claim dismissed
pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See id. at 1525-26.
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, holding:
The Rooker-Feldman 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. Rooker-
Feldman does not otherwise override or
supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the
circumscribed doctrines that allow federal
courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in
deference to state-court actions.
Id. at 1521-22. The Court specifically limited the doctrine to
cases in the procedural posture of Rooker and Feldman themselves:
Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited
circumstances in which this Court's appellate
jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28
U.S.C. § 1257, precludes a United States
district court from exercising subject-matter
jurisdiction in an action it would otherwise
be empowered to adjudicate under a
congressional grant of authority[.] In both
cases, 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.
Plaintiffs in both cases, alleging
federal-question jurisdiction, called upon the
District Court to overturn an injurious
state-court judgment. Because § 1257, as long
interpreted, vests authority to review a state
court's judgment solely in this Court, the
District Courts in Rooker and Feldman lacked
subject-matter jurisdiction.
Id. at 1526 (citations omitted).
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In short, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine now applies only in
the "limited circumstances" 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. The doctrine
"does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or
augment the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to
stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions."
Id. at 1522.
III.
Exxon Mobil tells us when a state court judgment is
sufficiently final for operation of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine:
when "the state proceedings [have] ended." 125 S. Ct. at 1526. If
federal litigation is initiated before state proceedings have
ended, then -- even if the federal plaintiff expects to lose in
state court and hopes to win in federal court -- the litigation is
parallel, and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not deprive the
court of jurisdiction. See id. at 1526-28. On the other hand, if
federal litigation is initiated after state proceedings have ended,
and the plaintiff implicitly or explicitly "seek[s] review and
rejection of [the state] judgment," id. at 1526, then a federal
suit seeking an opposite result is an impermissible attempt to
appeal the state judgment to the lower federal courts, and, under
Rooker-Feldman, the federal courts lack jurisdiction.
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As noted above, our prior tests of finality involved
appealability under § 1257 and/or state law preclusive effect.
Under Exxon Mobil, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies when the
losing party in state court files suit in federal court "after the
state proceedings ended." We now explore what it means for state
proceedings to have "ended," and explain how this test differs from
the tests we had set forth before Exxon Mobil.
Generally speaking, state proceedings will have "ended"
in three situations. Two are obvious; the third perhaps is not.
First, when the highest state court in which review is
available has affirmed the judgment below and nothing is left to be
resolved, then without a doubt the state proceedings have "ended."
In this situation, the state court judgment would constitute a
"[f]inal judgment[] or decree[] rendered by the highest court of a
State in which a decision could be had" under § 1257, it would
carry preclusive effect in virtually every state, and -- most
relevant here -- it would qualify under Exxon Mobil's "ended" test.
Second, if the state action has reached a point where
neither party seeks further action, then the state proceedings have
also "ended." For example, if a lower state court issues a
judgment and the losing party allows the time for appeal to expire,
then the state proceedings have ended. In this situation, the
judgment would carry preclusive effect in virtually every state.
It would usually not, however, be an appealable "[f]inal judgment[]
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or decree[] rendered by the highest court of a State in which a
decision could be had" under § 1257. Nevertheless -- and this is
what matters -- it qualifies under Exxon Mobil's "ended" test.10
Third, if the state court proceedings have finally
resolved all the federal questions in the litigation, but state law
or purely factual questions (whether great or small) remain to be
litigated, then the state proceedings have "ended" within the
meaning of Rooker-Feldman on the federal questions at issue. We
infer this meaning from a footnote in Exxon Mobil that provides an
example of a federal suit that would be subject to Rooker-Feldman
even though the state court litigation was still ongoing.
The example is a hypothetical propounded in ASARCO Inc.
v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605 (1989). According to the Exxon Mobil
Court, the hypothetical would fit within the reach of the
reformulated Rooker-Feldman doctrine, even though the litigation
had not completely ended, because the state proceedings had ended
as to all federal questions. Exxon Mobil, 125 S. Ct. at 1524 n.2.
In ASARCO, the plaintiffs sought state court declaratory
and injunctive relief against an Arizona mineral leasing statute on
10
A more subtle version of this scenario is where the lower
state court does not issue a judgment but merely an interlocutory
order (e.g., a discovery order determining whether certain
documents were privileged), and the parties then voluntarily
terminate the litigation. In this case, the state court issue
would be neither appealable under § 1257 nor preclusive under the
preclusion law of most states. Nevertheless, the state proceedings
have ended, and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine precludes either party
from later challenging the order in federal court.
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the grounds of, inter alia, federal preemption. See 490 U.S. at
610. The trial court upheld the statute, but the Arizona Supreme
Court reversed, and "remanded the case to the trial court with
instructions to enter summary judgment for [plaintiffs], to enter
a judgment declaring [the state law] invalid, and to consider what
further relief, if any, might be appropriate." Id. The defendants
petitioned for certiorari, which the United States Supreme Court
granted. Id. at 610.
The plaintiffs, with the United States as amicus,
contended that the Court lacked jurisdiction over the appeal. They
raised two distinct jurisdictional arguments: that the state court
judgment was not a "final judgment" under § 1257 because matters of
relief remained to be litigated, and that the case was
nonjusticiable because, although the plaintiffs had standing to
file the suit under state law, they did not have standing under
Article III. See id. at 611-12.
The Supreme Court rejected both arguments. It held that
§ 1257 jurisdiction was available under the doctrine of Cox
Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.S. 469 (1975),11 and that, even
11
Cox Broadcasting defines four situations in which a non-final
judgment will nevertheless be considered "final" for purposes of
§ 1257:
[(1)] there are further proceedings -- even entire trials
-- yet to occur in the state courts but where for one
reason or another the federal issue is conclusive or the
outcome of further proceedings preordained.
. . .
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though the plaintiffs would not have been able to file the suit in
federal court initially, the defendants nevertheless had standing
to bring the appeal. See ASARCO, 490 U.S. at 612, 617-19.
The Court also rejected the United States's suggestion
that the defendants had to seek relief through a federal
declaratory judgment action. Id. at 620. The Court observed that
such an action would require the federal court "to readjudicate the
very same issues that were determined in the state-court
proceedings below," and "in essence[] would be an attempt to obtain
direct review of the Arizona Supreme Court's decision in the lower
federal courts" in violation of Rooker-Feldman. Id. at 622-23.
[(2)] the federal issue, finally decided by the highest
court in the State, will survive and require decision
regardless of the outcome of future state-court
proceedings.
. . .
[(3)] the federal claim has been finally decided, with
further proceedings on the merits in the state courts to
come, but in which later review of the federal issue
cannot be had, whatever the ultimate outcome of the case.
. . .
[(4)] the federal issue has been finally decided in the
state courts with further proceedings pending in which
the party seeking review here might prevail on the merits
on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review
of the federal issue by this Court, and where reversal of
the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive
of any further litigation on the relevant cause of
action rather than merely controlling the nature and
character of, or determining the admissibility of
evidence in, the state proceedings still to come . . .
[and] refusal immediately to review the state-court
decision might seriously erode federal policy . . . .
420 U.S. at 479-83.
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ASARCO, to summarize, was a case where state proceedings
had not completely ended, but all federal questions had been
finally resolved. The ASARCO Court held that the case had reached
sufficient finality both to confer § 1257 jurisdiction under Cox
Broadcasting, and to invoke Rooker-Feldman against any hypothetical
federal action concerning the same questions. A footnote in Exxon
Mobil reaffirms that position:
The injury of which the [ASARCO] petitioners
(the losing parties in state court) could have
complained in the hypothetical federal suit
would have been caused by the state court's
invalidation of their mineral leases, and the
relief they would have sought would have been
to undo the state court's invalidation of the
statute. The hypothetical suit in ASARCO,
therefore, shares the characteristics of the
suits in Rooker and Feldman, i.e., loser in
state court invites federal district court to
overturn state-court judgment.
125 S. Ct. at 1524 n.2. Thus, Exxon Mobil's explanation of the
ASARCO hypothetical confirms that Rooker-Feldman applies where the
state proceeding has ended with respect to the issues that the
federal plaintiff seeks to have reviewed in federal court, even if
other matters remain to be litigated.
This scenario prompts the question of how the lower
federal courts should determine whether a state proceeding, still
ongoing in some form, has ended with respect to a particular
federal issue. We infer from Exxon Mobil that the Cox Broadcasting
test of finality should be used for this purpose by the following
reasoning. Exxon Mobil confirms that the ASARCO state court
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litigation was sufficiently final (i.e., had "ended") for purposes
of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See id. And ASARCO concluded that
the state court litigation there was sufficiently final for Supreme
Court review because it satisfied the Cox Broadcasting test. See
490 U.S. at 612. In short, Exxon Mobil and ASARCO, read together,
suggest that if state court litigation is sufficiently final for
Supreme Court review, then it is sufficiently final for purposes of
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
Of course, Cox Broadcasting itself only answers the
question of whether § 1257 jurisdiction is immediately available,
whereas our present question is whether state proceedings have
"ended." And we hasten to repeat that a proceeding may have
"ended" under Exxon Mobil even when § 1257 jurisdiction would not
have been available.12 However, while appealability under § 1257
is not necessary to satisfy the Exxon Mobil "ended" test, it will
almost always be sufficient.13 Put another way, if a state court
decision is final enough that the Supreme Court does have
12
For example, if a lower state court issues a judgment and the
losing party allows the time for appeal to expire, then the state
proceedings have ended, but § 1257 jurisdiction would ordinarily
not be available.
13
By contrast, a preclusive state court judgment is not
sufficient to trigger the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. In most states,
a trial court judgment acquires preclusive effect as soon as it
issues. See, e.g., O'Brien v. Hanover Ins. Co., 692 N.E.2d 39, 44
(Mass. 1998); Bartlett v. Pullen, 586 A.2d 1263, 1265 (Me. 1991);
Silva v. Silva, 404 A.2d 829, 832 (R.I. 1979). While the state
court judgment is pending on appeal, it carries preclusive effect,
but (in most cases) the state proceedings have not yet "ended."
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jurisdiction over a direct appeal, then it is final enough that a
lower federal court does not have jurisdiction over a collateral
attack on that decision. Therefore, except in unusual
circumstances, if § 1257 jurisdiction would have been available
under Cox Broadcasting, then the state proceedings have
sufficiently "ended" for purposes of Exxon Mobil.14 Of course, the
opposite does not follow; as stated above, there are many
situations where § 1257 jurisdiction would not be available, and
yet state proceedings have ended. But where § 1257 jurisdiction is
available -- either because an appeal has progressed to "final
judgment," or under one of the Cox Broadcasting exceptions -- then,
for purposes of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, state proceedings will
ordinarily be deemed to have "ended."
IV.
Exxon Mobil means that our prior tests of finality
(appealability under § 1257 and preclusive effect) are no longer
applicable for Rooker-Feldman purposes. Simply put, a state
proceeding may meet the "ended" test of Exxon Mobil even if it
fails one or both of those prior tests. Consequently, the
applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine no longer turns on
whether the state court decision was "final" or "preclusive."
Rather, we examine the posture of the case in the state court --
14
We do not decide how to apply Exxon Mobil in cases where the
state proceedings have, for all practical purposes, ended as to the
federal issue, but the Cox Broadcasting exceptions do not apply.
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i.e., whether "state proceedings [have] ended," 125 S. Ct. at 1526
-- and the relief sought in the federal court.
This conclusion conflicts, to some extent, with some of
our precedents. "Ordinarily, newly constituted panels in a
multi-panel circuit should consider themselves bound by prior panel
decisions." Eulitt v. Me. Dep't of Educ., 386 F.3d 344, 349 (1st
Cir. 2004). However, an exception applies "when a preexisting
panel opinion is undermined by subsequently announced controlling
authority, such as a decision of the Supreme Court." Id.
That is the case here. Exxon Mobil holds that federal
courts lack jurisdiction to review a state court judgment in a
federal case initiated "after the state proceedings ended." 125 S.
Ct. at 1526. While such judgments will often qualify as "final
judgments" under § 1257 and/or carry state law preclusive effect,
neither § 1257 finality nor state law preclusive effect is
necessary under the Exxon Mobil test.
Consequently, we recognize that Exxon Mobil has
effectively abrogated the dictum in Cruz stating that "denying
jurisdiction based on a state court judgment that is not eligible
for review by the United States Supreme Court simply would not
follow from the jurisdictional statute that invigorated the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine in the first place," 204 F.3d at 21 n.5,
and the similar statement in Hill holding that, because "Rooker-
Feldman is keyed to § 1257," it therefore requires a judgment
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immediately reviewable by the Supreme Court, 193 F.3d at 40. Under
Exxon Mobil, state proceedings may have "ended" even though § 1257
review would not be available.
Similarly, we recognize that Exxon Mobil has effectively
abrogated Badillo-Santiago, Pérez-Guzmán, and Cruz to the extent
that they state that Rooker-Feldman doctrine only applies to state
court judgments with preclusive effect. See Badillo-Santiago, 378
F.3d at 6 ("Rooker-Feldman applies to state or territorial court
judgments to which the federal courts would accord preclusive
effect, and the federal courts 'can ascribe no greater preclusive
force to a state court judgment than would the courts of that
state.'") (quoting Cruz, 204 F.3d at 21)); Pérez-Guzmán, 346 F.3d
at 238 n.5 ("'[O]nly a state court adjudication that itself has
preclusive effect can bring the Rooker-Feldman doctrine into
play.'") (quoting Cruz, 204 F.3d at 21 n.5); Cruz, 204 F.3d at 21
n.5 ("Only a state court adjudication that itself has preclusive
effect can bring the Rooker-Feldman doctrine into play."). Under
Exxon Mobil, state law preclusive effect is simply not
determinative.
V.
We now apply the Rooker-Feldman clarifications provided
by Exxon Mobil to this case. As we understand it, the Federación
posits that the Puerto Rico court's decision was interlocutory,
that § 1258 does not give the Supreme Court jurisdiction over
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interlocutory (non-final) judgments, and that, therefore, Rooker-
Feldman should not apply. Under Rooker-Feldman, as clarified by
Exxon Mobil, these arguments are largely irrelevant.
Rather, what matters is that the state court proceedings
have ended with regard to the sole federal issue, namely, whether
the Board's jurisdiction is preempted by the NLRA. That
jurisdictional question is separate and independent from the merits
of the dispute. It logically should be, and has been, decided in
advance of a trial on the merits. Moreover, the Puerto Rico
Supreme Court has declined to disturb the lower court's decision,
thus exhausting the possibility of further review in the Puerto
Rico court system.15
We find that this case falls neatly within one of the
situations described in Cox Broadcasting:
15
The Federación contends that, despite losing its
jurisdictional argument multiple times before both the Board and
the Puerto Rico courts, it has not lost its right to request
further review of its jurisdictional defense before those very
tribunals. Since it might yet prevail on this defense, the
Federación reasons, the Puerto Rico decision is not final -- or, in
the language of Exxon Mobil, the state proceedings have not ended.
We consider it highly unlikely that the Federación could yet
persuade the Puerto Rico courts that they lack jurisdiction. The
Puerto Rico Court of Appeals concluded that the Federación's
activities neither "impact[] nor substantially impede[] . . . the
flow of commerce between Puerto Rico and any other state, territory
of the United States or country," and consequently that "the
[Board] did not err when it decided that it had jurisdiction to
deal with the case of record." (emphasis deleted). This holding
appears to create law of the case and leave little room for further
argument concerning the Board's jurisdiction.
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[W]here the federal issue has been finally
decided in the state courts with further
proceedings pending in which the party seeking
review [in the Supreme Court] might prevail on
the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus
rendering unnecessary review of the federal
issue by [the Supreme] Court, and where
reversal of the state court on the federal
issue would be preclusive of any further
litigation on the relevant cause of action
. . . if a refusal immediately to review the
state-court decision might seriously erode
federal policy, the Court [has jurisdiction].
420 U.S. at 482-83; see also Belknap, Inc. v. Hale, 463 U.S. 491,
497 & n.5 (1983) (accepting jurisdiction over state court decision
that unfair labor practice charge brought in state court was not
within jurisdiction of NLRB); Local No. 438 Constr. & Gen. Laborers
Union v. Curry, 371 U.S. 542, 548-50 (1963) (accepting jurisdiction
over state court's injunction against labor union picketing; issue
to be further litigated on the merits was legality of picketing,
which was entirely separate from the union's federal defense, that
NLRB's jurisdiction over labor dispute was exclusive); cf. Mitchell
v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525 n.8 (1985) ("[S]tate-court decisions
rejecting a party's federal-law claim that he is not subject to
suit before a particular tribunal are 'final' for purposes of our
certiorari jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1257."). If an
interlocutory state decision on a federal issue would be reviewable
by the Supreme Court under one of the Cox Broadcasting exceptions,
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then (absent unusual circumstances not present here) state court
proceedings have "ended" for purposes of Exxon Mobil.16
With these issues resolved, this case turns out to be as
simple as it first appeared. The Federación litigated its federal
labor law preemption defense before the Puerto Rico Court of
Appeals. That court found that the Federación was not engaged in
interstate commerce and that the Board's jurisdiction was not
preempted by federal labor law; the Puerto Rico Supreme Court did
not disturb that judgment. The Federación's subsequent federal
claim seeks a declaration that the Board's jurisdiction was
preempted by federal labor law. That claim could succeed only if
the federal court were to hold that the Puerto Rico decision was
incorrect. As in Rooker and Feldman, here "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,
125 S. Ct. at 1526. Consequently, the district court lacked
jurisdiction to review the state court decision, despite the
interlocutory nature of the Puerto Rico courts' decisions. The
district court properly dismissed the complaint.
Affirmed.
16
Again, the relevance of Cox Broadcasting is not that
appealability under § 1257 is required in order for the proceedings
to have "ended" under Exxon Mobil. But when an interlocutory state
court decision is appealable under Cox Broadcasting, then the
"ended" test, as we construe it, will almost always be satisfied.
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