[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
September 12, 2005
No. 05-11941 THOMAS K. KAHN
Non-Argument Calendar CLERK
________________________
D. C. Docket No. 05-80024-CV-DTKH
GEORGE MAY,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
ALEXIA J. CAPOTE, individually,
SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICT,
jointly and severally,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(September 12, 2005)
Before TJOFLAT, BIRCH and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
George May, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court’s order dismissing
his 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 action. Because the issues raised and relief sought
before the district court were inextricably intertwined with a previous state court
judgment, the district court did not err in dismissing May's complaint for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction. Accordingly, we AFFIRM.
I. BACKGROUND
May filed a pro se civil action against Alexia Capote, an Assistant Attorney
General for the state of Florida, and the South Florida Water Management District
(“SFWMD”), a Florida state agency, alleging several violations of the United
States Constitution. R1-1 at 4. May asserted that the defendants (1) condemned
his property and refused to pay him just compensation of $171,666,000, (2)
threatened him with death and contempt of court in order to prevent him from
accessing the courts and presenting his evidence of just compensation, and (3) on
the 11th, 19th, and 24th of August 2004, "ratified their signed written corroborated
letter confessions" of their deprivation of May's constitutional and civil rights. Id.
at 3-5. May requested that the district court enter judgment against the defendants
for $171,666,000, declare the state court orders of 11 August 2004, 19 August
2004, and 24 August 2004 unconstitutional, and enjoin the defendants from
enforcing any order depriving May of his constitutional and civil rights. Id. at 5.
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In addition to his complaint, May filed attachments of various state court orders
and his state court appellate brief. See generally R1-1, exh. A.
In response, defendant Capote filed a motion to dismiss May’s complaint
and for sanctions. R1-4. Capote alleged that (1) May was enjoined from filing suit
because he failed to post the required $1500.00 bond pursuant to a 30 August 2000
order of the district court1, (2) May failed to state a cause of action, (3) Capote was
entitled to sovereign and qualified immunity, and (4) May should be sanctioned for
filing a frivolous, duplicative action. Id. at 1, 4. Defendant SFWMD similarly
filed a motion to dismiss May’s complaint and for sanctions, asserting allegations
similar to those stated in Capote’s motion. R1-5. In addition to its motion,
SFWMD attached the jury verdict from the underlying state proceedings, showing
a jury valued May’s property at $32,700. Id., exh. B. May responded by filing
motions and supporting memoranda for default judgment against defendants. R1-
6, 8. May repeated his allegations from his complaint and added that defendants
filed “false, fraudulent, forged, court papers with the honorable court herein.” R1-
6 at 4; see generally R1-8.
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On 30 August 2000, due to May’s repeated filing of frivolous and baseless lawsuits, the
district court issued an order enjoining May from filing any further lawsuits in the district court
unless he first posted a $1500.00 contempt bond. See R1-5, exh. A.
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The district court dismissed with prejudice May’s complaint for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction. R1-10. The court determined that, in his complaint,
May requested the district court find that the state court wrongly decided his
condemnation case and that three other state court judgments were void and
violative of his constitutional rights. Id. at 4. The district court found, however,
that, under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413,
415-16, 44 S. Ct. 149, 150 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v.
Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476-82, 103 S. Ct. 1303, 1311-15 (1983), it did not have
subject-matter jurisdiction because May’s constitutional challenges to the result of
his state condemnation case and the three adverse state court rulings were
inextricably intertwined with prior state court judgments. Therefore, the district
court dismissed May’s complaint and denied as moot defendant’s motions to
dismiss for failure to state a claim and immunity challenges. Id. at 5.
II. DISCUSSION
On appeal, May argues that defendants have admitted all of his claims
through their failure to deny their unlawful acts and deprivations of May’s
constitutional and civil rights and their “signed written, corroborated, letter
confession dated January 24, 2005, and January 31, 2005.” Appellant’s Brief at 2.
Further, May contends that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is not a bar to his claims
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because his allegations that the defendants (1) prevented him from accessing the
state courts and presenting his evidence of just compensation to a jury, (2) filed
fraudulent documents, and (3) threatened May with death, are assertions of new
legal wrongs and illegal acts. Therefore, May maintains that the defendants have
violated and deprived him of his “protected Constitutional Rights protected under
Article I, Section 9, Clause I, Article I, Section 10, Clause I, Article VI, the First, . .
. , Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Seventh, Thirteenth, Fourteenth [] Amendment, the Due
Process[] Clause, the Equal Protection Clause.” Id. at 11.
We have held, in Cadet v. Bulger, 377 F.3d 1173, 1179 (11th Cir. 2004), that
“[f]ederal courts are obligated to inquire into subject-matter jurisdiction sua sponte
whenever it may be lacking.” (Citation and punctuation omitted). Questions of
subject-matter jurisdiction are reviewed de novo. Goodman ex rel. Goodman v.
Sipos, 259 F.3d 1327, 1331 (11th Cir. 2001). In Goodman, we explained that
[t]he Rooker-Feldman doctrine provides that federal courts, other than
the United States Supreme Court, have no authority to review the final
judgments of state courts. The doctrine 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. 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. However, even if a
claim is “inextricably intertwined” with the state court judgment, the
doctrine does not apply if the plaintiff had no reasonable opportunity
to raise his federal claim in state proceedings.
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Goodman, 259 F.3d at 1332 (citation and quotation omitted).
In order for Rooker-Feldman to bar a district court’s jurisdiction, four
criteria must be met. Amos v. Glynn County Bd. of Tax Assessors, 347 F.3d 1249,
1265 n.11 (11th Cir. 2003). The four criteria are:
(1) the party in federal court is the same as the party in state court; (2)
the prior state court ruling was a final or conclusive judgment on the
merits; (3) the party seeking relief in federal court had a reasonable
opportunity to raise its federal claims in the state court proceeding;
and (4) the issue before the federal court was either adjudicated by the
state court or was inextricably intertwined with the state court’s
judgment.
Id. (citations omitted). The Supreme Court has held that the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine is confined to cases that are “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., ___ U.S. ___, ___,
125 S.Ct. 1517, 1521-22 (2005).
May’s case fits squarely within the type of cases to which the Supreme
Court determined the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applies. See id. at ___, 125 S. Ct.
at 1521-22. In May’s state court condemnation proceedings, occurring prior to the
commencement of the district court proceedings, a jury determined that May’s
property was worth $32,700, rather than the $171,666.000 that May asserted. R1-
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5, exh. B; R1-1 at 3, 5. Moreover, the state court denied May’s motion for entry of
default judgment and dismissed his action with prejudice. R1-1, exh. A. Upon
losing in that state court proceeding, May requested that the district court review
that judgment and supplant its own valuation of May’s property. Id. at 5. The
procedural framework in May’s case is, therefore, similar to that described by the
Supreme Court in Exxon Mobil. See Exxon Mobil, ___ U.S. at ___, 125 S. Ct. at
1521-22.
This case also satisfies the four criteria we set forth in Amos. See Amos,
347 F.3d at 1265 n.11. First, the parties to the instant action are the same parties as
in state court. See R1-1, exh. A. Second, the prior state court ruling was a final
judgment on the merits because a jury determined the valuation of May’s property
in the underlying condemnation action and the state court denied May’s subsequent
challenges to the jury’s determination. See R1-5, exh. B; R1-1, exh. A. Third,
May had a reasonable opportunity to raise his federal claims in the state court
proceedings. During the condemnation trial, May presumably could have raised
his concerns regarding violations of his constitutional rights due to defendants
failure to pay him just compensation and their filing of fraudulent documents, and
there is no evidence in the record indicating the state court prevented him from
doing so. See generally R1. Additionally, May did, in fact, raise the issue of the
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defendants’ fraudulent documents in his brief to the state appellate court, but failed
to tie that allegation to a violation of his constitutional rights. See R1-1, exh. A.
Moreover, if the defendants were threatening May with death in order to prevent
him from accessing the courts, as May contended in his district court complaint,
May had a reasonable opportunity to raise that issue in one of the numerous state
court actions he pursued following the condemnation trial.
Finally, the issues May presented before the district court were inextricably
intertwined with the state court’s judgment. May’s allegation that the defendants
violated his constitutional rights by failing to pay him just compensation and
threatening him with death and contempt of court is inextricably intertwined with
the prior state court condemnation judgment because, in order for the district court
to find May’s allegation is true, it would inevitably need to find that the state court
wrongly decided the condemnation issue. See Goodman, 259 F.3d at 1332
(holding that “[a] federal claim[ is] “inextricably intertwined” with the state court
judgment [if] the federal claim[] succeed[s] only to the extent that the state court
wrongly decided the issues before it”). This is further evidenced by the fact that
May requested that the district court enter judgment against defendants for
$171,666,000, thereby replacing the state court’s judgment with that of the district
court. See R1-1 at 5. Similarly, the relief that May requested declaring three prior
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state court judgments unconstitutional on the grounds that the state court relied on
fraudulent documents from the defendants in making those judgments, is also
inextricably intertwined with prior state court judgments because in order for the
district court to grant May his requested relief, the court would have to find that the
state court wrongly determined the documents were not fraudulent. See Goodman,
259 F.3d at 1332.
III. CONCLUSION
Because the district court cannot grant May his requested relief without first
determining that the state court wrongly decided the issues before it, May’s claims
are inextricably intertwined with the prior state court judgments. As such, May’s
complaint is barred under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and, therefore, the district
court did not err in determining that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction.
Accordingly, we AFFIRM.
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