Bryant v. Sylvester , 57 F.3d 308 ( 1995 )

Opinions of the United
1995 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
6-8-1995
Bryant v Sylvester
Precedential or Non-Precedential:
Docket 94-1635
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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 94-1635
___________
ANDRE M. BRYANT; FATHERS' AND CHILDREN'S
EQUALITY, INC.
Appellees,
vs.
ESTHER R. SYLVESTER, HONORABLE,
Administrative Judge-Family Division in her
official and individual capacity; NANCY
SOBOLEVITCH, ESQUIRE, Court Administrator in
her official and individual capacity; GEOFF
GALLAS, Executive Court Administrator in his
official and individual capacity; MATTHEW
TIERNEY, Court Administrator-Family Division
in his official and individual capacity;
JOSEPH DI PRIMIO, ESQUIRE, Court
Administrator in his official and individual
capacity; ANDREA HOFFMAN-JELIN, ESQUIRE,
Director of Children and Youth Services in
her official and individual capacity
Appellants.
___________
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA
(D.C. Civil No. 94-cv-01990)
___________
ARGUED DECEMBER 7, 1994
OPINION VACATED JUNE 1, 1995
SUBMITTED PURSUANT TO LAR 34.1(a)
ON PANEL REHEARING JUNE 5, 1995
BEFORE: STAPLETON, ROTH and LEWIS, Circuit Judges.
(Filed June 8 , 1995)
___________
David M. Donaldson Arlin M. Adams, Esq.
Howard M. Holmes Michael J. Barry, Esq.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Schnader, Harrison &
Administrative Office of PA Courts Lewis Ste 3600
1515 Market Street, Suite 1414 1600 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102 Philadelphia, PA 19103
Attorneys for Appellants
Ronald K. M. Williams
Northwest Legal Center
Post Office Box 43175
Philadelphia, PA 19129
Attorney for Appellees
___________
OPINION OF THE COURT
___________
LEWIS, Circuit Judge.
This case raises an issue of apparent first impression:
whether an order denying the Rooker-Feldman defense is final as a
collateral order. We conclude that an order denying the Rooker-
Feldman defense is not final as a collateral order and is not
immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine. We
will therefore dismiss this appeal for lack of appellate
jurisdiction.
I.
The Family Court Division of the Court of Common Pleas
of Philadelphia County operates a nursery at the Family Court
Building in Philadelphia. In operating this nursery, the Family
Court provides an area for supervised visitation in cases in
which supervised visitation has been ordered by the Family Court.
In early November of 1993, the Honorable Esther Sylvester,
Administrative Judge of the Family Court Division of the
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and a defendant in this case,
approved the closing of the Family Court nursery on two dates:
December 26, 1993 and January 2, 1994. The plaintiffs, Andre
Bryant, a non-custodial parent restricted, by court order, to
visitation in the Family Court-operated nursery, and Fathers' and
Children's Equality, Inc., a non-profit Pennsylvania corporation
"chartered to insure the continual access of children to their
non-custodial parents and extended family members," Plaintiffs'
brief at 3, sought in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court to enjoin
the defendants from closing the nursery on these days. The
matter was transferred on jurisdictional grounds to the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court where the plaintiffs' request for a
preliminary injunction was denied without hearing. No appeal to
the United States Supreme Court was sought.
In early March of 1994, Judge Sylvester again
authorized the closing of the Family Court nursery, this time on
April 3, 1994. Soon after the authorization of this additional
nursery closing, the plaintiffs filed this class action lawsuit
in which they claim that by closing the nursery, the defendants
violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
In lieu of filing an answer, the defendants moved to dismiss
under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) and (6). The defendants
contended, inter alia, that judicial immunity and the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine required dismissal of the plaintiffs' complaint.
The district court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss and
ordered that discovery proceed. This appeal followed.1
1
. The question of the applicability of judicial immunity is
not before us, as that issue, though argued in the defendants'
brief, was waived at oral argument, during which the following
exchange took place:
The Court: You are not appealing from the
denial of your motion insofar as it
related and relied on judicial
immunity?
Answer: No, your honor, it is purely the
Rooker-Feldman and the qualified
immunity which applies to all the
defendants . . . .
. . . .
The Court: Let me make sure I understand you.
I understood you in response to my
question on direct to say that the
issue of whether your motion was
wrongfully denied insofar as it
relied on judicial immunity was not
before us, you were not pressing
that argument . . . you wrote a
section in your brief on it, but
you are not --
Answer: I am not pressing the judicial
immunity argument . . . .
The Court: You are not just talking about your
argument this morning, your oral
argument, you are saying we do not
have to address those issues
because your clients are no longer
relying on them?
II.
Ordinarily, we review only "final" decisions of the
district court under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.2 Federal Ins. Co. v.
Richard I. Rubin & Co., Inc., 12 F.3d 1270, 1279 (3d Cir. 1993).
A decision is final only when there is a "``decision by the
(..continued)
Answer: I do not press the judicial
immunity argument, your honor.
Nor is the issue of qualified immunity before us, the
defendants arguments to the contrary notwithstanding. Having
found that the defendants did not assert qualified immunity, the
district court did not consider the applicability of the
qualified immunity defense. In this appeal, the defendants
contend, with apparent support in the trial record, that they did
in fact argue qualified immunity in the district court. However,
the defendants did not assert qualified immunity in their motion
to dismiss, nor did they argue qualified immunity in their brief
in support of the motion. In a brief styled "Memorandum in
Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion to Amend Complaint and in
Further Support of Defendants' Motion to Dismiss or, in the
Alternative, for Summary Judgment," which the defendants filed
some six days prior to the district court's denial of their
motion to dismiss, the defendants for the first time argued
qualified immunity. Under these circumstances, the district
court properly refrained from considering the issue of qualified
immunity. Had the district court considered qualified immunity,
the plaintiffs would have been prejudiced by not having had an
opportunity to respond to the defendants' arguments regarding the
applicability of qualified immunity prior to the district court's
ruling on the defendants' motion. And because the district court
did not err in refusing to consider qualified immunity, we lack
jurisdiction to hear the defendants' appeal to the degree it
raises the issue of qualified immunity. See Kulwicki v. Dawson,
969 F.2d 1454, 1460 (3d Cir. 1992) ("[o]ur jurisdiction to hear
immunity appeals is limited only where the district court does
not address the immunity question below, or where the court does
not base its decision on immunity per se").
2
. 28 U.S.C. § 1291 provides:
The courts of appeals . . . shall have
jurisdiction of appeals from all final
decisions of the district courts of the
United States . . . .
district court that ends the litigation on the merits and leaves
nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.'" Id.
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). According to
the defendants, however, we have appellate jurisdiction over this
appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. The defendants contend the
district court's order denying the defendants' motion to dismiss
is appealable under the "collateral order" doctrine first
articulated in Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S.
541 (1949). In Cohen, the Supreme Court held that a "small
class" of collateral orders are final and appealable under 28
U.S.C. § 1291 even though they do not terminate the underlying
litigation. Cohen, 337 U.S. at 546. For an order to come within
Cohen's collateral order rule, it must satisfy three tests:
first, the order must "conclusively determine" the disputed
question; second, it must "resolve an important issue completely
separate" from the merits of the action; and third, it must be
"effectively unreviewable" on appeal from a final judgment.
Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468-69 (1978). If
the order at issue fails to satisfy any one of these
requirements, it is not an appealable collateral order. See
Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. v. Mayacamas Corp., 485 U.S. 271, 276
(1988); Communication Workers v. American Tel. & Tel., 932 F.2d
199, 205 (3d Cir. 1991).
The Supreme Court has repeatedly referred to the
collateral order doctrine as a "narrow exception" to the final
judgment rule,3 see, e.g., Richardson-Merrell, Inc. v. Koller,
472 U.S. 424, 430 (1985) (citation omitted), and we have,
accordingly, construed the doctrine narrowly "``lest the exception
swallow up the salutary general rule' that only final orders may
be appealed." Yakowicz v. Pennsylvania, 683 F.2d 778, 783 n.10
(3d Cir. 1982) (citation omitted); see Transtech Industries, Inc.
v. A & Z Septic Clean, 5 F.3d 51, 57 (3d Cir. 1993) ("We have
followed the Supreme Court's admonition and ``have consistently
construed the Cohen exception narrowly rather than expansively.'"
(citations omitted)). Strict construction of the collateral
order doctrine is designed to further the long-standing
Congressional policy against piecemeal appeals which underlies
the final judgment rule. See Lusardi v. Xerox Corp., 747 F.2d
3
. Recently, the Supreme Court observed that the collateral
order doctrine is best understood not as an exception to the
"final decision" rule laid down by Congress in 28 U.S.C. § 1291,
"but as a ``practical construction' of it." Digital Equipment
Corporation v. Desktop Direct, Inc., 114 S. Ct. 1992, 1995
(1994).
We have repeatedly held that the statute
entitles a party to appeal not only from a
district court decision that "ends the
litigation on the merits and leaves nothing
more for the court to do but execute the
judgment," but also from a narrow class of
decisions that do not terminate the
litigation, but must, in the interest of
"achieving a healthy legal system,"
nonetheless be treated as "final."
Id. (citations omitted).
174, 177 (3d Cir. 1984).4 To guard against the temptation of
expanding the doctrine's reach, the Supreme Court has instructed
that the issue of the immediate appealability of orders that do
not terminate litigation is to be determined for the entire
category to which the order belongs, "without regard to the
chance that the litigation at hand might be speeded, or a
``particular injustice' averted, by a prompt appellate court
decision." Digital Equipment Corporation v. Desktop Direct,
Inc., 114 S. Ct. 1992, 1996 (1994) (citation omitted).
Before determining whether the district court's order
denying the defendants' Rooker-Feldman defense qualifies as a
collateral order, a word or two is in order concerning Rooker-
Feldman. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine provides that federal
district courts lack subject matter jurisdiction to sit in direct
review of state court adjudications or to hear constitutional
4
. We have stated that the final judgment rule serves a number
of salutary purposes:
It is intended to ensure efficient
administration of scarse judicial resources.
It facilitates maintenance of "the
appropriate relationship between [trial and
appellate] courts." In addition, in cases
where the litigants may have unequal economic
resources, it protects the judicial process
and its participants from the delay which can
prove advantageous to a well-financed
litigant, and fatal to the less well-endowed.
Lusardi v. Xerox Corp., 747 F.2d 174, 177 (3d Cir. 1984)
(citations omitted); see also Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v.
Risjord, 449 U.S. 368, 374 (1981).
claims that are "inextricably intertwined" with the state court's
decision. District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460
U.S. 462, 482 n.16 (1983). See also Rooker v. Fidelity Trust
Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923) ("Under the legislation of Congress, no
court of the United States other than this Court could entertain
a proceeding to reverse or modify" a state court judgment.).
This limitation upon federal district court subject matter
jurisdiction is usually said to derive from 28 U.S.C. § 1257,
which provides that "[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the
highest court of a state in which a decision could be had, may be
reviewed by the Supreme Court . . . ." See, e.g., Valenti v.
Mitchell, 962 F.2d 288, 296 (3d Cir. 1992). In addition to this
formal statutory basis for the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we have
identified other justifications for the rule:
As with Younger abstention, which requires
federal courts to abstain when there is a
pending state court proceeding, part of the
justification for Rooker-Feldman is respect
for state courts. Just as federal district
courts should presume that pending state
court proceedings can correctly resolve
federal questions, they should also presume
that completed state court proceedings have
correctly resolved these questions.
A second justification for Rooker-
Feldman stems from its similarity to claim
preclusion. Like claim preclusion, Rooker-
Feldman is partly concerned with finality,
with ensuring that litigants do not take
multiple bites from the same apple. Once
litigants' claims have been adjudicated in
the state court system, they should not also
have access to the entire federal court
system.
Guarino v. Larsen, 11 F.3d 1151, 1157 (3d Cir. 1993) (citations
omitted). With this sketch of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine's
contours in mind, we turn now to evaluate the immediate
appealability of the district court's order denying the
defendants their Rooker-Feldman defense.
III.
A decision denying a motion to dismiss for lack of
subject matter jurisdiction is considered to fall outside the
Cohen exception to the final decision rule. See Transtech
Industries, Inc. v. A & Z Septic Clean, 5 F.3d 51, 58 (3d Cir.
1992); United States v. Layton, 645 F.2d 681, 683 (9th Cir. 1981)
(holding that challenges to subject matter jurisdiction generally
fail the third prong of the Cohen test); Moore's Federal Practice
¶ 110.10 p. 74 (citing cases). Likewise, decisions denying
assertions of res judicata are considered to be beyond the
collateral order exception. See Digital Equipment Corporation,
114 S. Ct. at 1998; Transtech Industries, 5 F.3d at 58. Because
the Rooker-Feldman doctrine has a close affinity both with
notions of subject matter jurisdiction and claim preclusion, we
might be tempted to resolve the issue of the immediate
appealability of Rooker-Feldman denials by way of analogy to
these categories of claims. However, underlying the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine are concerns rooted in federalism and comity,
concerns not necessarily present within the concepts of claim
preclusion and subject matter jurisdiction. Therefore, we will
address the immediate appealability of the denial of a Rooker-
Feldman defense with explicit reference to the issue of respect
for state courts that underlies the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
Because we conclude that the third requirement -- that
the order be "effectively unreviewable" on appeal from a final
judgment -- is not met in this case, we need not discuss the
first and second prerequisites for the collateral order doctrine
to determine the immediate appealability of a denial of a Rooker-
Feldman defense. See Communication Workers, 932 F.2d at 205 n.6
("Since we find that the district court's order does not satisfy
the third prong of Cohen, we do not consider whether the first
and second prongs of Cohen are satisfied."). The Supreme Court
has explained that, as a general rule, an order is "effectively
unreviewable" only where "the order at issue involves ``an
asserted right the legal and practical value of which would be
destroyed if it were not vindicated before trial.'" Lauro Lines
S.R.L. v. Chasser, 490 U.S. 495, 499-500 (1989) (citation
omitted); accord Zosky v. Boyer, 856 F.2d 554, 561 (3d Cir. 1988)
(to be appealable under the collateral order doctrine, an order
must be such that "review [of the order] postponed will, in
effect, be review denied").
The Court's most recent discussion of the collateral
order doctrine appears in Digital Equipment Corporation, decided
less than a year ago. In that case, Desktop Direct, Inc.
("Desktop") sued Digital Equipment Corporation ("Digital") for
unlawful use of the "Desktop Direct" name. Digital Equipment
Corporation, 114 S. Ct. at 1995. Soon after the filing of the
complaint, the parties reached a settlement agreement. Pursuant
to the agreement, Digital agreed to pay Desktop a sum of money
for the right to use the "Desktop Direct" trade name and
corresponding trademark, and for waiver of all damages and
dismissal of the trademark infringement suit brought by Desktop
against Digital. Id. Following the settlement agreement,
Desktop filed a notice of dismissal in the district court.
Several months later, however, Desktop moved to vacate the
dismissal and rescind the settlement agreement on the ground that
Digital had misrepresented material facts during the settlement
negotiations. Id. The district court granted this motion.
Digital then appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth
Circuit dismissed Digital's appeal for lack of appellate
jurisdiction, holding that the order of the district court was
not appealable under section 1291 because it neither ended the
litigation nor fell within the collateral order exception to the
final judgment rule. Id. The Supreme Court granted certiorari
to consider whether an order denying effect to a private
settlement agreement comes within the ambit of the collateral
order rule. Id.
During the course of its analysis of this question,
analysis which led to an affirmance of the Tenth Circuit's
dismissal of Digital's appeal, the Court rejected Digital's
argument that the identification of some interest or right that
would be "irretrievably lost" per se satisfies the third Cohen
requirement:
[T]he strong bias of § 1291 against piecemeal
appeals almost never operates without some
cost. A fully litigated case can no more be
untried than the law's proverbial bell can be
unrung, and almost every pretrial or trial
order might be called ``effectively
unreviewable' in the sense that relief from
error can never extend to rewriting history.
Thus, erroneous evidentiary rulings, grants
or denials of attorney disqualification, and
restrictions on the rights of intervening
parties may burden litigants in ways that are
only imperfectly reparable by appellate
reversal of a final district court judgment
. . . . But if immediate appellate review
were available every such time, Congress's
final decision rule would end up a pretty
puny one, and so the mere identification of
some interest that would be "irretrievably
lost" has never sufficed to meet the third
Cohen requirement.
Digital Equipment Corporation, 114 S. Ct. at 1998 (citations
omitted) (emphasis supplied).
The Court also rejected Digital Equipment's contention
that a party's ability to characterize the right allegedly denied
as a "right not to stand trial" is both sufficient and necessary
for a finding that the order appealed from is a collateral order.
This contention, the Court explained, "is neither an accurate
distillation of our case law nor an appealing prospect for adding
to it." Id. The Court further explained that limiting the
collateral order analysis to a focus upon whether the interest
asserted could be called a "right not to stand trial" is
inadequate to protect against "the urge to push the § 1291
limits." Id.
We have, after all, acknowledged that
virtually every right that could be enforced
appropriately by pretrial dismissal might
loosely be described as conferring a "right
not to stand trial." Allowing immediate
appeals to vindicate every such right would
move § 1291 aside for claims that the
district court lacks personal jurisdiction,
that the statute of limitations has run, that
the movant has been denied his [or her] Sixth
Amendment right to speedy trial, that an
action is barred on claim preclusion
principles, that no material fact is in
dispute and the moving party is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law, or merely that
the complaint fails to state a claim. Such
motions can be made in virtually every case,
and it would be no consolation that the
party's meritless summary judgment motion or
res judicata claim was rejected on immediate
appeal; the damage to the efficient and
congressionally mandated allocation of
judicial responsibility would be done, and
any improper purpose the appellant might have
had in saddling its opponent with cost and
delay would be accomplished. Thus, precisely
because candor forces us to acknowledge that
there is no single "obviously correct way to
characterize" an asserted right, we have held
that § 1291 requires courts of appeals to
view claims of a "right not to be tried" with
skepticism, if not a jaundiced eye.
Id. at 1998-99 (citations omitted).
In the wake of Digital Equipment Corporation, a party's
ability to characterize a district court's decision as denying an
irreparable "right not to stand trial" of itself will not suffice
to entitle that party to an immediate appeal of the decision.
See Digital Equipment Corporation, 114 S. Ct. at 1998. Following
Digital Equipment Corporation, the analysis required under the
third prong of the Cohen test does not entail so much the
characterization of the right denied as it does inquiry into the
relative value or importance of the interests "that would be
[forever] lost through rigorous application of a final judgment
requirement. Id. at 2001.
 The defendants contend that the interests in federalism
and comity sought to be protected by Rooker-Feldman would be
irreparably harmed by the very fact of federal judicial inquiry
into the state court decision at issue. "Once a state
adjudication is subjected to discovery, inquiry, review, trial,
etc., the integrity of the decision, as protected from federal
court review by Rooker-Feldman is gone forever." Defendants'
Reply at 6. According to the defendants, Rooker-Feldman is the
"equitable corollary to judicial immunity":
[I]t is the immunity state decisions enjoy
from federal district court review. Akin to
Eleventh Amendment, absolute, or qualified
immunity, Rooker-Feldman is of no practical
value after final judgment and appeal, i.e.,
after federal review of a state court
adjudication takes place. Any benefit to
state courts conferred by Rooker-Feldman "is
for the most part lost as litigation proceeds
past motion practice." Quite simply, the
very fact of a federal court inquiry, without
immediate appeal, into a state court
adjudication . . . renders Rooker-Feldman
worthless.
Defendants' Reply at 7-8.
We disagree with the defendants' contention that
Rooker-Feldman is of no practical value if its ultimate
vindication must await the entry of final judgment following
district court review of the state court adjudication at issue.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine's value as a protector of state
courts is not irreparably undermined by district court review of
state court adjudications; so long as district court review of a
state court adjudication is followed by the proper application of
the doctrine at the court of appeals level, the interests that
Rooker-Feldman seeks to further will be secured. To understand
why this is so, one need only compare Rooker-Feldman to the types
of claims already deemed to fall within the ambit of the
collateral order doctrine.
The purpose of the classic immunities -- Eleventh
Amendment, absolute and qualified immunity -- all considered to
fall within the collateral order doctrine, is to prevent the
holder of the immunity from being dragged into federal district
court to answer to civil suits for damages. See Mitchell v.
Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985) (stating that qualified
immunity is an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to
liability; "and like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost
if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial"); Puerto Rico
Aqueduct & Sewer Authority v. Metcalf & Eddy, 113 S. Ct. 684, 689
(1993) ("``the very object and purpose of 11th Amendment [are] to
prevent the indignity of subjecting a State to the coercive
process of judicial tribunals at the instance of private
parties'" (citation omitted)); Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731
(1982) (the essence of absolute immunity is the possessor's
entitlement not to have to answer for his or her conduct in a
civil damages action). It is easy to see how this purpose would
be effectively thwarted were an order denying qualified immunity,
for example, not held to be immediately appealable. Were such an
order not immediately appealable, the qualified immunity holder
would be forced to endure the burden of a trial -- the very
"harm" the immunity is supposed to immunize the holder against --
before being permitted to seek the vindication of the immunity
right. Simply put, the immunity holder would obtain absolutely
nothing of value from the ultimate vindication of the immunity
interest following a trial in the district court.5
Indeed, a finding that the failure to allow immediate
appeal would lead to the infliction of some irreparable harm on
an actual person or entity represents a common thread running
through the cases in which we have found that the order in
question constitutes a collateral order. In Praxis Properties v.
Colonial Sav. Bank, 947 F.2d 49 (3d Cir. 1991), for example, a
case in which we found an order denying Resolution Trust
Corporation ("RTC") a stay under the stay provision of the
Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of
1989, 12 U.S.C. § 1812(d)(12)6 to be a collateral order, we
stated:
5
. Precisely the same can be said, and has been said by the
Supreme Court, with respect to orders denying the protection of
the Speech or Debate Clause, as well as orders denying the right
not to stand trial on double jeopardy grounds. See Helstoski v.
Meanor, 442 U.S. 500 (1979) (holding that an order denying the
protection of the Speech or Debate Clause is immediately
appealable); Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651 (1977) (holding
that an order denying the right not to stand trial on double
jeopardy grounds is immediately appealable).
6
. 12 U.S.C. § 1821(d)(12) provides:
After the appointment of a conservator or
receiver for an insured depository
institution, the conservator or receiver may
request a stay for a period not to exceed --
(i) 45 days, in the case of any
conservator; and
(ii) 90 days, in the case of any
receiver,
Congress afforded RTC this right to a stay
under § 1821(d)(12) because it realized that
upon RTC's appointment as receiver or
conservator for a failed thrift, RTC is
likely to find the thrift in a state of
profound disarray and may require some
breathing room to orient itself and determine
how best to proceed with pending litigation.
If the district court denies a proper request
for a stay under § 1821(d)(12), RTC's
statutory right to a short litigation cease-
fire, like a government official's right to
qualified immunity, is "irretrievably lost"
absent immediate appeal.
Id. at 60. Similarly, in Federal Ins. Co. v. Richard I. Rubin &
Co., Inc., 12 F.3d 1270 (3d Cir. 1993), a case in which we
extended the collateral order doctrine to a claim for immunity
from suit conferred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
("FSIA"), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602-1611, we stated:
[P]roviding review only after a trial [of the
order denying the FSIA defense] would destroy
the "legal and practical value" of their
sovereign immunity defense. At the post-
trial stage of the proceeding, the Dutch
parent corporations will have been forced to
endure the very burden they are arguing they
should not be subjected to in the first place
-- a trial on the merits.
Id. at 1282. See also In re School Asbestos Litigation, 842 F.2d
671 (3d Cir. 1988) (holding that an order denying a party the
right to engage in public communications with persons and in fora
unrelated to the litigation was immediately appealable because
"``the loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods
of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.'"
(..continued)
in any judicial action or proceeding to which
such institution is or becomes a party.
(citation omitted)). In each of these cases, crucial to our
conclusion that the order in question constituted an immediately
appealable collateral order was the fact that failure to afford
immediate appeal would have rendered the right asserted worthless
to the actual entity holding the right. The same simply cannot
be said in the context of Rooker-Feldman.
One of the interests that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
seeks to promote is respect for state courts. Guarino, 11 F.3d
at 1157. To further this interest, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine
precludes federal district court review of state court
adjudications. See id. Significantly, the protection that
Rooker-Feldman affords attaches not to the state courts
themselves, but rather to their adjudications. Unlike people,
states and state entities -- the direct recipients and
beneficiaries of the classic immunities, for example --
adjudications do not suffer irreparably by being haled into
federal district court for review. Indeed, once a court of
appeals rules that under Rooker-Feldman, the district court
lacked subject matter jurisdiction to review the state court
adjudication, it is, both as a practical as well as a legal
matter, as if the state court adjudication had never been
reviewed by a federal district court in the first place. So long
as the state court adjudication's Rooker-Feldman-derived
"immunity" is acknowledged and vindicated by the court of appeals
following the entry of a final judgment, the interest in
respecting state courts by holding their adjudications beyond
federal district court scrutiny is adequately protected.7
By concluding that the denial of a Rooker-Feldman
defense does not give rise to an immediately appealable
collateral order, we do not gainsay the importance of the
interests in federalism and comity that the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine seeks to protect. We simply believe that these
interests are not irreparably harmed through rigorous application
of the final judgment rule. We note that in other contexts these
same interests have been understood to be adequately vindicable
on appeal following the entry of final judgment. See Coleman by
Lee v. Stanziani, 735 F.2d 118 (3d Cir. 1984) (holding that the
denial of a motion to dismiss asserting Younger v. Harris
abstention grounds satisfies none of the Cohen requirements).
IV. CONCLUSION
Having concluded that an order denying the Rooker-
Feldman defense is not immediately appealable under the
collateral order rule, we will dismiss for lack of appellate
7
. We say that the Rooker-Feldman interests are adequately
vindicable on appeal from a final judgment because we recognize,
as has the Supreme Court, that section 1291 never operates
without some cost. Digital Equipment Corporation, 114 S. Ct. at
1998. Litigants are always burdened in ways that are "only
imperfectly reparable by appellate reversal of a final district
court judgment." Id.
jurisdiction the defendants' appeal from the district court's
order denying their Rooker-Feldman defense.
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