NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted December 6, 2017*
Decided December 19, 2017
Before
MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge
DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
No. 16‐3950
BARRY A. ROBIN and ANNA MARIE Appeal from the United States District
ROBIN, Court for the Northern District of Illinois,
Plaintiffs‐Appellants, Eastern Division.
v. No. 15 CV 9099
BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, et al., Sharon Johnson Coleman,
Defendants‐Appellees. Judge.
O R D E R
Barry and Anna Marie Robin sued several financial institutions and law firms,
which, they allege, wrongfully obtained a foreclosure judgment against their home in
state court by engaging in a fraudulent scheme that violated the federal RICO statute.
The district court, concluding that the Robins’ lawsuit effectively sought review of the
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not
significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
No. 16‐3950 Page 2
state court’s foreclosure judgment, granted one defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of
subject‐matter jurisdiction on the basis of the Rooker–Feldman doctrine. See D.C. Court of
Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482 (1983); Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 416 (1923).
The court entered judgment for all defendants, and the Robins did not appeal.
Four months later, the Robins filed a “Motion To Reconsider.” They argued that
the district judge had overlooked Iqbal v. Patel, 780 F.3d 728 (2015), in which we explained
that the Rooker‐Feldman doctrine does not apply when a plaintiff seeks damages for fraud
that occurred outside of state litigation and that independently caused injury. Id. at 730
(when extrajudicial fraud causes injury, “then a district court has jurisdiction—but only
to the extent of dealing with that injury.”). Reasoning that the Robins’ case did not fit this
description, the judge denied the motion.
On appeal the Robins contend that the district judge misconstrued their
allegations and therefore wrongly concluded that the Rooker‐Feldman doctrine deprived
the court of jurisdiction. We cannot consider this argument directly because the Robins
did not file a timely appeal of the judgment of dismissal or file, within the allotted 28
days, a motion to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
59(e). See Banks v. Chi. Bd. of Educ., 750 F.3d 663, 666–67 (7th Cir. 2014). Given the timing
of their motion to the district court, they could obtain relief only under the catchall‐
provision of Rule 60(b)(6). See Blue v. Intʹl Bhd. of Elec. Workers Local Union 159, 676 F.3d
579, 583, 585 (7th Cir. 2012). A Rule 60(b)(6) motion is not a substitute for a timely appeal,
e.g., Mendez v. Republic Bank, 725 F.3d 651, 660 (7th Cir. 2013), so the Robins needed to
show that “exceptional circumstances” warranted the “extraordinary remedy” of
reviving their dismissed case. Blue, 676 F.3d at 585 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted); see also Banks, 750 F.3d at 667–68. In their motion and appellate brief, the Robins
presented arguments that might have been appropriate for a timely appeal (though we
are not saying they would have prevailed), but they did not identify any exceptional
circumstances that made it an abuse of discretion to deny their motion. See Mendez, 725
F.3d at 660–61 (reviewing denial of Rule 60(b)(6) motion only for abuse of discretion).
It does not matter that the district judge, in denying the Robins’ motion, referred
to Rule 59(e)’s standards of “manifest error” and “newly discovered evidence” and not
to Rule 60(b). See Banks, 750 F.3d at 668. Their motion, however styled, argued that there
was federal subject matter jurisdiction and therefore asked the judge to correct a
purported legal error. The district judge did not abuse her discretion in denying the Rule
60(b)(6) motion to reconsider her earlier decision on that issue.
AFFIRMED.