In Sutter & Gillham PLLC v. Henry, No. 24-1071 (8th Cir. July 31, 2025), the Eighth Circuit reverses dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 conspiracy action concerning a state-court judge, alleging collusion with defense counsel, and holds that the action does not fall within the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
“The alleged conspiracy grew out of an Arkansas wrongful-death action involving a teenage boy who died from a gunshot wound. His family suspected foul play. Sutter & Gillham PLLC, a law firm, initially represented his mother but later withdrew . . . . [That] firm became embroiled in related litigation . . . . including the case before us now, which alleges two federal constitutional claims against the wrongful-death defendants and their attorneys. Underlying each is the idea that they conspired with the state trial judge to sink the case.”
The state-court judge was alleged, inter alia, to have corruptly sanctioned the law firm to damage their reputation, and prevented their intervention in the case to challenge that order.
While the district court dismissed on Rooker–Feldman grounds, the Eighth Circuit reverses and remands.
Rooker–Feldman at one time had been widely and loosely understood to preclude federal court jurisdiction over actions that challenged any judicial activity in state-court actions. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court markedly scaled the rule back in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280 (2005), holding that only cases directly challenging the “underlying state-court decision and judgment itself” were barred by that doctrine.
“In dismissing the case” here, the Eighth Circuit holds, “the district court seemingly took a trip back in time. Specifically, it relied on one of our [pre-Saudi Basic] cases to emphasize that the firm and its attorneys should have appealed [the disputed orders] rather than ‘recast those claims under section 1983 and try again.’”
“The legal wrongs described in the complaint are . . . a mismatch for the Rooker–Feldman doctrine” as redefined in Saudi Basic. “One allegation is that the state-court defendants filed retaliatory lawsuits against the firm and its attorneys, which harmed them and their families by casting them in a negative light across Arkansas. Another is that they caused the firm to withdraw from the state-court case and coaxed the court into a finding of misconduct, which they believe has caused reputational, financial, and other harm. The plaintiffs view the defendants as complicit in violating their First Amendment and due-process rights, which they hope to remedy in their federal lawsuit through an award of damages, as well as a declaratory judgment . . . .”
Any outcome in the federal suit, the panel notes, would still leave the state-court orders and judgment intact. “[I]t hardly matters whether the firm and its attorneys qualify as state-court losers, nor whether the sanctions order was final when they filed their federal lawsuit. There is no denying, however, that they were non-parties to the case and withdrew before the state court dismissed, which makes this case an awkward Rooker–Feldman fit.”
The panel remands for consideration of the defendants’ claim preclusion and exhaustion defenses.
Paul Mollica's Federal Courts Blog 