UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1016
PHILLIP ROUSSEAU; CARVEL MAYS, JR.; FRANK MARTIN; PAUL F.
KENDALL,
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
v.
HOWARD COUNTY, MARYLAND; PAUL JOHNSON, Individually and in
his Official Capacity as Deputy County Solicitor; LYNN
ROBESON, Individually and in her Official Capacity as
Assistant County Solicitor; MARSHA S. MCLAUGHLIN,
Individually and in her Official Capacity as Director,
Department of Planning and Zoning; ROBIN REGNER,
Individually and in her Official Capacity as Administrative
Assistant to Hearing Examiner and Board of Appeals; LISA
KENNY, Individually and in her Official Capacity as
Administrative Assistant to the Director, Department of
Planning & Zoning; MICHELE L. LEFAIVRE, Individually and in
her Official Capacity as Board of Appeals Hearing Examiner,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. J. Frederick Motz, District Judge.
(1:09-cv-01079-JFM)
Argued: January 25, 2011 Decided: April 21, 2011
Before NIEMEYER, DUNCAN, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Susan Baker Gray, Highland, Maryland, for Appellants.
Melissa Shane Whipkey, HOWARD COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Ellicott
City, Maryland, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Margaret Ann Nolan,
County Solicitor, Louis P. Ruzzi, Senior Assistant County
Solicitor, HOWARD COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Ellicott City, Maryland,
for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Four residents and voters (“Residents”) of Howard County,
Maryland, commenced this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against
Howard County and five of its officers in their individual
capacities, alleging numerous Fourteenth Amendment due process
and equal protection violations with respect to state
administrative and judicial proceedings. The district court
dismissed the claims, finding that three of the residents had
impermissibly split their claims between two cases and that the
fourth did not have standing. This appeal followed.
We affirm the judgment of the district court, but we
conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear
this case under Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413
(1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman,
460 U.S. 462 (1983).
The Residents allege “numerous due process violations . . .
at the hands of various county Board[]s and agencies, and their
attorneys and staff” during “the county’s administrative review”
process. Many of these decisions were in the contexts of
proposed development projects and land use. The complaint
“challenges these actions, as well as the statutorily prescribed
process in which most of these actions occurred as being
fundamentally unfair and designed to ensure those participating
in these processes will have no chance of being heard.” The
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Residents allege that “each of them suffered harm to a protected
interest as a result of the pattern and practice of Howard
County to deny them due process in county administrative review
and ‘appeals’ processes by a deliberate failure to follow rules,
outright perversion of the process by various means including
fraud, misrepresentation and collusion between the county and
the developers, and by inherent structural defects in the law
preventing any sufficient or legitimate process, let alone,
constitutionally adequate due process.” They contend that their
due process and equal protection rights were violated in the
course of many hearings and proceedings, including hearings by
the Howard County Board of Appeals and proceedings in Maryland
state courts. They characterize their claims as “a challenge to
the conduct of administrative proceedings and decisions” at the
county level.
On appeal, the Residents argue that the district court
erroneously dismissed their claims. With respect to the claims
of three Residents, Kendall, Martin, and Rousseau, which were
dismissed for claim splitting, they argue that “[t]he series of
transactions or core operative facts in [this case] arise from a
number of independent administrative hearings, decisions,
defective administrative processes in those hearings, or failure
to hold administrative hearings or give notice of decisions,”
none of which they contend were implicated by the related case
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which arose out of the same transactions. And they argue with
respect to the fourth Resident, Mays, that he had standing
because “plaintiffs have standing to bring suit if they allege a
diminution of their right to vote.”
We do not reach the Residents’ arguments, however, because
we conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to hear
this case under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The Residents’
complaint asks that lower federal courts in effect exercise
appellate review over numerous state administrative and judicial
decisions, and under our system of federalism, the lower federal
courts lack jurisdiction to sit as appellate tribunals over
state administrative and judicial decisionmakers, absent
explicit statutory authorization. See Rooker, 263 U.S. 413;
Feldman, 460 U.S. 462; Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic
Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2004) (holding that lower
federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear “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”). Parties aggrieved by state administrative
and judicial decisions must pursue review in state appellate
tribunals, with the ultimate opportunity to petition the Supreme
Court of the United States for review. See Exxon Mobil Corp.,
544 U.S. at 291-92. We note that decisions of the Howard County
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Planning Board can be appealed to the Howard County Hearing
Examiner, with further appeals to the Howard County Board of
Appeals and the state court system, beginning with the Circuit
Court for Howard County. See, e.g., Howard County Code, Rules
of Procedure of the Board of Appeals, § 2.211(e) (providing for
appeal from Board of Appeals to Circuit Court for Howard
County). Indeed, the Residents acknowledge the existence of
this process. They simply contest its sufficiency.
For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment
of dismissal.
AFFIRMED
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