Edwards v. City of Manchester ( 1997 )

[NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 97-1258
MARK L. EDWARDS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
CITY OF MANCHESTER ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Stephen J. McAuliffe, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Circuit Judge,
Gibson, Senior Circuit Judge,
and Lynch, Circuit Judge.
Gordon R. Blakeney, Jr., for appellant.
Kevin M. St.Onge
, with whom
Thomas R. Clark
, City Solicitor, was on
brief, for appellees.
August 6, 1997
Hon. John R. Gibson, of the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This suit arises out of damage
to plaintiff's two vintage airplanes, which were stored at the
City of Manchester Airport in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
After unsuccessfully bringing tort and breach of contract
claims against the city and others in state court, Mark Edwards
alleged violations of his civil rights in federal district
court. The district court held that the federal suit was in
large part an impermissible attack on a judgment by the state
court and dismissed the complaint. We affirm.
I.
Mark Edwards began keeping his airplanes at the
airport in 1973 pursuant to an oral agreement. In 1990, the
airport instituted new licensing, insurance and indemnity
requirements for its tenants. Edwards had his airplanes
inspected for licensing purposes and discovered damage to the
planes, dating from around 1987, caused, he believed, by sand
and other debris blown about by jet and propeller wash. The
damage apparently rendered the airplanes inoperable. Without
repairs, which would cost at least $25,000 for one of the
planes alone, Edwards was unable to comply with the defendants'
new leasing requirements.
Edwards brought suit in state court seeking
compensatory damages and an injunction preventing the
defendants from moving or further harming the planes. Edwards'
claims were based on theories of breach of bailment contract
-2-
2
and conversion in tort. The action was dismissed in June 1995.
The state court reasoned that the contract claim failed because
Edwards had not pleaded facts sufficient to allege a bailment
contract, and that the tort claim failed because N.H. Rev.
Stat. Ann. S 422:17 bars on sovereign immunity grounds any tort
action based on "the construction, maintenance, operation,
superintendence or management of any air navigation facility."
The dismissal was summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court of
New Hampshire in December 1995 and April 1996.
The defendants began eviction proceedings in state
court. Edwards raised several counterclaims, arguing that the
sovereign immunity statute was unconstitutional for numerous
reasons, but later non-suited the counterclaims. The city
prevailed in the eviction proceeding in April 1996 and took
non-exclusive possession of one of the airplanes. The aircraft
has since been stored by the city at its own expense.
Plaintiff now claims that defendants "have undertaken to
dispose [of] the appellant's one aircraft remaining on the
airport grounds without complying with applicable state law
that prescribes a procedure that must be followed for such
actions."
Plaintiff initiated a federal action in October 1996.
He filed an amended complaint in November 1996, accompanied by
1. The counterclaims of unconstitutionality seemed to be based
on the state rather than the federal constitution.
-3-
3
a motion for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary
injunction. The amended complaint asserted four causes of
action under 42 U.S.C. S 1983: (1) the state court
interpretation of N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. S 422:17 violated
plaintiff's rights to procedural and substantive due process of
law in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; (2)
the state court interpretation of N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. S 422:17
deprived plaintiff of his property without due process of law
in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; (3) N.H.
Rev. Stat. Ann. S 422:17 is facially unconstitutional in that
it deprives individuals of equal protection of law as
guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; and (4) the
state court interpretation of N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. S 422:17
violated the Contracts Clause. The amended complaint also
included supplemental state law causes of action.
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss. The district
court held a status conference and issued an order directing
plaintiff to show cause why the complaint should not be
dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The court dismissed the
complaint in December 1996, concluding that the federal claims
were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and res judicata,
2. Although the district court apprised counsel of its
interest in the relationship of the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine to
this case, neither party addressed the issue. The court
nevertheless based its decision on that ground. As a
jurisdictional issue, it was within the court's purview to
bring up sua sponte.
-4-
4
and declining to exercise jurisdiction over the supplemental
state law claims. This appeal followed.
II.
The
Rooker-Feldman doctrine prohibits federal courts
other than the Supreme Court from engaging in direct review of
state court decisions. See District
of
Columbia
Court
of
Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 476 (1983); Rooker v.
Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16 (1923). A corollary
of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine is that lower federal courts
lack jurisdiction to consider claims inextricably intertwined
with review of state judicial proceedings. This kind of
interrelationship occurs if resolution of the claims in federal
court would amount to federal appellate review of the state
court decision. Lancellotti v.
Fay, 909 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir.
1990).
Here, three of Edwards' federal causes of action are
"as applied" challenges to the constitutionality of N.H. Rev.
Stat. Ann. S 422:17. Edwards argues that the state courts
violated the federal Constitution by refusing to hear his
claims against the defendants. He argues that his claims
concerning the unconstitutionality of the New Hampshire statute
"were only brought . . . after his attempt to litigate in state
court was unsuccessful, due to the application of a state
sovereign immunity statute to him." But "[i]t is well-
established that lower federal courts have no jurisdiction to
-5-
5
hear appeals from state court decisions, even if the state
judgment is challenged as unconstitutional." Schneider v.
Colegio de Abogados de Puerto Rico
, 917 F.2d 620, 628 (1st Cir.
1990).
As the district court aptly stated, these claims are
a "not-so-cleverly disguised" attack on the decisions of the
state court. Edwards v. City
of
Manchester, No. 96-517-M
(D.N.H. Dec. 17, 1996). As such, under the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine, we lack jurisdiction to consider them.
Plaintiff's only remaining federal cause of action,
which is based on the Equal Protection Clause, is a facial
constitutional challenge to N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. S 422:17. The
Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar a party from challenging
the constitutionality of a state statute on its face.
Schneider, 917 F.2d at 628. However, this claim is
3. Plaintiff's claim -- that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
cannot be applied here because "the courts of the State of New
Hampshire never had nor assumed jurisdiction" over his state
court suit -- is without merit. Cf. United
States v. United
Mine Workers of America
, 330 U.S. 258, 292 n.57 (1947) (noting
that it cannot "be broadly asserted that a judgment is always
a nullity if jurisdiction . . . is wanting" because "a court
has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction" (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted)).
4. One of these federal claims arguably involves an issue on
which the state court has not passed. Plaintiff's claim that
he has been deprived of property without due process of law is
based in part on his allegation that the defendants are
planning to sell his one airplane remaining at the airport
without following the proper state procedures. Edwards could
have raised his concerns about the disposition of his airplane
at the eviction proceedings, and thus the claim is barred by
res judicata principles.
-6-
6
nevertheless barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Res
judicata precludes later litigation of matters that could have
been litigated (as well as those that actually were litigated)
in an earlier action between the same parties for the same
cause of action. In
re
Alfred
P., 495 A.2d 1264, 1265 (N.H.
1985); see
also ERG,
Inc. v. Barnes, 624 A.2d 555, 558 (N.H.
1993) (defining "cause of action" as "embrac[ing] all theories
on which relief could be claimed arising out of the same
factual transaction"). Here, plaintiff could have raised his
equal protection challenge to the statute during the state
court proceedings. The claim is, in any event, without merit,
as it is rational for a state to grant sovereign immunity in
the form of the New Hampshire statute.
Affirmed.
5. A federal court applies state law to determine the
preclusive effect of a state court decision. 28 U.S.C. S 1738;
New
Hampshire
Motor
Transport
Ass'n v. Town
of
Plaistow, 67
F.3d 326, 328 (1st Cir. 1995).
-7-
7