[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
October 4, 2005
No. 05-10299
THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 04-02500-CV-T-24-TBM
LEONARD FRANCIS INCORVAIA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
HELEN CLAUDETTE INCORVAIA,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
_________________________
(October 4, 2005)
Before BLACK, MARCUS and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Leonard Francis Incorvaia, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s sua
sponte dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action for lack of jurisdiction
under the “Rooker-Feldman doctrine.” 1 In a “Petition for Writ of Ce[r]tiorari,”
Incorvaia filed this action against his former wife, Helen Claudette Incorvaia,
asking the district court to review an order of the Second District Court of Appeal
of Florida affirming a final judgment of dissolution of marriage. Incorvaia asserted
that the dissolution order violated his due process rights, the Sixth Amendment,
and the Contracts Clause of the Constitution. The district court held that the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine barred the instant action and dismissed the action for
lack of jurisdiction. On appeal, Incorvaia argues that the state trial court abused its
discretion by ordering him to pay his former wife $153,000 despite evidence that
she had presented fraudulent financial evidence during the divorce proceedings and
a domestic violence injunction hearing.
We review de novo a district court’s dismissal for lack of subject-matter
jurisdiction. See Williams v. Best Buy, 269 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir. 2001).
After careful review of the record and the parties’ briefs, we affirm.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine limits the subject-matter jurisdiction of
federal district courts and courts of appeal over certain matters related to previous
state court litigation. See Rooker, 263 U.S. at 415-16, 44 S.Ct. at 150; Feldman,
1
See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 150, 68 L. Ed. 362
(1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476-82, 103 S. Ct. 1303,
1311-15, 75 L. Ed. 2d 206 (1983).
2
460 U.S. at 476-82, 103 S.Ct. at 1311-15. Under this doctrine, federal courts, other
than the U.S. Supreme Court, “have no authority to review the final judgments of
state courts” which involve the same parties as the parties in the federal action, and
this jurisdictional bar “extends not only to constitutional claims presented or
adjudicated by a state court, but also to claims that are ‘inextricably intertwined’
with a state court judgment.” Goodman ex. rel Goodman v. Sipos, 259 F.3d 1327,
1332 (11th Cir. 2001); see also Amos v. Glynn County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 347
F.3d 1249, 1266 n.11 (11th Cir. 2003). “A federal claim is inextricably
intertwined with a state court judgment if the federal claim succeeds only to the
extent that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it.” Goodman, 259
F.3d at 1332. Nevertheless, “even if a claim is ‘inextricably intertwined’ with the
state court’s judgment, the doctrine does not apply if the plaintiff had no
‘reasonable opportunity to raise his federal claim in state proceedings.’” Id.
(internal citation omitted).
The district court did not err by finding that it lacked jurisdiction to review
Incorvaia’s action based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The parties involved in
the federal and state actions are the same, and the state court entered a final
judgment before Incorvaia filed his federal action. Moreover, Incorvaia’s federal
claims were “inextricably intertwined” with the state court’s final judgment of
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dissolution of his marriage, and he had a reasonable opportunity to raise his claims
in state court. If we were now to hold that the Florida trial court’s alimony order
was unconstitutional, we would “effectively nullify” the state court’s judgment.
See Powell v. Powell, 80 F.3d 464, 467 (11th Cir. 1996) (holding that
Rooker-Feldman barred ‘as applied’ challenge to state court decision to distribute a
portion of husband’s naval retirement pay to wife upon divorce). Accordingly, we
affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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