Nahmod Law

The Rooker-Feldman Question Presented in University of Maryland Medical System

In its 2025 Term, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a Fourth Circuit case, T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System, 139 F.4^th 344, 353-354 (4^th Cir. 2025), cert granted, 147 S. Ct.— (12-5-25)(No. 25-197), aff’d, 147 S. Ct. – (2026), to deal with the following Question Presented: “Whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine can be triggered by a state-court decision that remains subject to further review in state court.” The Court, in an opinion for the Court by Justice Sotomayor, answered in the affirmative, with Justice Thomas concurring, and Justice Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch, dissenting.

The Fourth Circuit’s Decision

In this case, a patient and her parents sought to invalidate a state court’s consent order basing her release from involuntary commitment on compliance with certain conditions. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the district court correctly dismissed this § 1983 complaint under Rooker-Feldman, pointing out that the case “bears an uncanny resemblance to Rooker” which similarly sought to undo a state court judgment. It did not matter that this case involved a consent order which was itself challenged as unconstitutional; the plaintiff was still a state court loser. And even though plaintiff won in one state court, that state court case did not involve the court order that plaintiff now argued was unconstitutional. Finally, the Fourth Circuit rejected the plaintiff’s argument that Rooker-Feldman should not apply here because there was no final state court judgment. The court explained: “[W]e agree with the Sixth and Eighth Circuits that Rooker-Feldman is not limited to situations when a federal court plaintiff no longer has any recourse within the state system.” There was no “stealth fifth requirement for invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.”

The Supreme Court’s Decision

Affirming, the Supreme Court explained that this case involved the “straightforward application of the logic and reasoning underlying Rooker-Feldman.” The plaintiff here complained of injuries caused by the state court judgment itself, by arguing that the consent order violated her federal and state due process rights and was entered into under duress ten days before the federal lawsuit was filed. This was the “paradigm” Rooker-Feldman situation.

The Court went on to reject the plaintiff’s argument that a new requirement should be added to Rooker-Feldman, namely, that it should apply only to final judgments entered by the highest court of the relevant state. It concluded that this proposed rule was “inconsistent with the Court’s precedents, risks producing anomalous results, and undermines federalism interests.” Instead, the Court emphasized that Rooker-Feldman was, and should continue to be, grounded on the functional distinction between original federal court jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over state court judgments under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. Contrary to the plaintiff’s argument and the dissenters’ position, Rooker-Feldman cases were not akin to collateral attacks brought under a federal district court’s original jurisdiction pursuant to § 1331.

The Concurring and Dissenting Opinions

Justice Thomas concurred, agreeing with the majority that Rooker-Feldman was soundly based on the “simple legal proposition that only this Court may exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments.” Justice Barrett, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch, dissented, arguing that Rooker-Feldman should not apply when the underlying state court action remains pending. The seven Courts of Appeals that had previously so ruled “were right to hold the line. … Because Rooker-Feldman stands on shaky ground, we have consciously kept its footprint small. … [S]o we should make the doctrine no larger.”

The dissenters also rejected the majority’s argument that federalism principles were promoted by applying Rooker-Feldman to non-final state court judgments, particularly since the plaintiff’s suit was brought under § 1983, which had transformed traditional concepts of federalism. For this and other reasons, the majority’s ruling “muddied waters that were hardly clear to begin with.” Finally, the dissenters emphasized that, regardless of the majority’s decision in this case, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine’s scope should be narrow.

Comment

The (slim) majority got it right because the rationale of Rooker-Feldman, that federal courts do not have appellate jurisdiction over state court decisions, applies with full force to state court decisions that are not final. On the other hand, the dissenters were correct in insisting that Rooker-Feldman, at its best incredibly arcane and frequently difficult to apply consistently, should be narrow in scope.

For much more on Rooker-Feldman, including collected circuit court decisions, see §§ 1:26-1:30 in Nahmod, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Litigation: The Law of Section 1983 (2025 edition)(2026 edition forthcoming)(West/Westlaw).