John Croley v. Joint Committee on Judicial Administration , 895 F.3d 22 ( 2018 )


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  •  United States Court of Appeals
    FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
    Argued April 23, 2018                    Decided July 6, 2018
    No. 15-5080
    JOHN DOUGLAS CROLEY,
    APPELLANT
    v.
    JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION,
    APPELLEE
    Consolidated with 15-5153
    Appeals from the United States District Court
    for the District of Columbia
    (No. 1:15-cv-00175)
    Adele M. El-Khouri, appointed by the court, argued the
    cause as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With her on the
    briefs was Chad Golder.
    John Croley, pro se, was on the briefs for appellant.
    Adam Daniel, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the
    Attorney General for the District of Columbia, argued the cause
    for appellee. On the briefs were Karl A. Racine, Attorney
    General, Loren L. AliKhan, Solicitor General, Stacy Anderson,
    2
    Acting Deputy Solicitor General, and Mary L. Wilson, Senior
    Assistant Attorney General.
    Before: GARLAND, Chief Judge, PILLARD, Circuit Judge,
    and SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.
    Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD.
    PILLARD, Circuit Judge: In 1985, John Croley brought a
    personal injury suit against the Republican National
    Committee (RNC) in the District of Columbia Superior Court
    after an RNC security guard physically assaulted Croley while
    he was photographing an overflowing dumpster near RNC
    headquarters. See Croley v. Republican Nat’l Comm., 
    759 A.2d 682
    , 686 (D.C. 2000). A jury ruled in Croley’s favor in
    1998, awarding him a $1.2 million judgment against the RNC.
    In 2002, the RNC paid $1.37 million—that judgment plus
    interest—into the District of Columbia court system’s coffers.
    Croley’s lawyers promptly took their fee from that pot pursuant
    to an attorney’s charging lien against the sum. Croley himself,
    however, did not then receive the remaining $1.25 million.
    Croley did not get his money until 2015, thirteen years after the
    RNC had paid in full.
    Croley here sues the Joint Committee on Judicial
    Administration, the administrative arm of the D.C. court
    system, seeking compensatory and punitive damages for what
    he alleges was the Joint Committee’s role in the events causing
    that thirteen-year delay in receiving his payment. After the
    RNC paid and counsel took their cut, Croley—suffering
    permanent and disabling injuries from the assault—was left
    unable to navigate the process of obtaining his money from the
    registry at the Superior Court. The money the RNC paid to
    satisfy the judgment was in the court’s possession as of 2002
    but, Croley alleges, court administrators failed to release it to
    3
    him; they rebuffed his requests for assistance and for
    reasonable accommodations for his disabilities, and they
    misled him as to the funds’ status. If the Joint Committee had
    requisite disability accommodation policies in place, Croley
    alleges, he would have had prompt possession of his damages
    award. Instead, Croley was deprived for more than a decade of
    funds meant to compensate him for, among other things, his
    lost earnings. And he spent significant time, expense, and
    energy over those many years in repeated, unsuccessful efforts
    to dislodge his judgment from the Superior Court—efforts that
    would have been entirely unnecessary, he contends, if the Joint
    Committee had fulfilled its legal obligations.
    Croley, acting pro se, sued the Joint Committee in federal
    court for damages. He claimed that the Joint Committee
    violated his property rights and failed to comply with its
    affirmative obligations under federal law to accommodate
    disabled litigants. The district court sua sponte dismissed
    Croley’s complaint for want of federal jurisdiction under the
    Rooker-Feldman doctrine. To the extent Croley’s complaint
    calls for appeal of a District of Columbia court order issued in
    Croley’s suit against the RNC, any such claim is barred by
    Rooker-Feldman. But Rooker-Feldman is no bar to those
    portions of Croley’s federal complaint against the Joint
    Committee that do not seek to appeal orders in his Superior
    Court suit against the RNC: Neither Croley’s claim that
    Superior Court administrative personnel violated his property
    rights by misleading him and mishandling his award, nor his
    claim that court administrators neglected their legal duty to
    make the courts accessible to persons with disabilities like his,
    necessarily calls for the federal courts to review any state court
    judgment. We therefore reverse the judgment of the district
    court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this
    opinion.
    4
    I.
    In his 1985 personal injury suit, Croley established that an
    RNC-employed security guard attacked him, inflicting post-
    traumatic stress disorder, chest trauma, and brain injuries that
    left him permanently disabled. See Croley, 
    759 A.2d at
    686-
    88. Croley was photographing an overflowing trash dumpster
    on the street where he lived, planning to present the photos at
    an upcoming zoning meeting as evidence of a public sanitation
    problem, when he was approached by two security guards
    assigned to the RNC office building on an adjacent property.
    
    Id. at 686
    . The guards told Croley he was not permitted to
    engage in nighttime activities on that street. 
    Id.
     Croley,
    believing he was acting within his rights on a public street, kept
    taking pictures. 
    Id.
     One of the guards then assaulted and
    severely injured Croley. 
    Id.
    Croley filed suit against the RNC and the security guard in
    D.C. Superior Court. Following a seven-day trial in October
    1998, 
    id. at 698
    , a jury awarded Croley $1.2 million, 
    id. at 689
    .
    In 2000, the D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed. 
    Id. at 694, 703
    .
    At this threshold procedural stage, we have a limited
    record chronicling the disconnect between Croley and the
    money the RNC paid to satisfy his judgment. We rely on
    Croley’s pro se complaint, which we construe in the light most
    favorable to him, see Brown v. Whole Foods Mkt. Grp., 
    789 F.3d 146
    , 150 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (Whole Foods), and also refer
    to the rather sparse and obscure entries in the Superior Court
    docket in Croley’s 1985 suit against the RNC, see Veg-Mix,
    Inc. v. Dep’t of Agric., 
    832 F.2d 601
    , 607 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Pro
    se complaints like Croley’s must be “liberally construed” and
    “held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted
    by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 
    551 U.S. 89
    , 94 (2007)
    (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 
    429 U.S. 97
    , 106 (1976)); see also
    5
    Whole Foods, 789 F.3d at 150, 152. We note that our
    description of Croley’s claims makes no determination of their
    factual veracity or legal adequacy; our review is limited to the
    threshold question whether the types of claims Croley alleges
    are jurisdictionally barred for the reasons given by the district
    court.
    After successful defense of his judgment in the D.C. Court
    of Appeals in 2000, see Croley, 
    759 A.2d at 694
    , Croley’s
    relationship with counsel broke down. Croley alleges that, as
    early as January 2001, he tried to file a complaint against his
    counsel for failing to help him find and gain possession of the
    money the RNC had paid. Compl. ¶ 34(c)(ii). He sought and
    was denied assistance to do so from the Americans with
    Disabilities Act (ADA) coordinator at the D.C. Superior Court.
    
    Id.
     Croley’s counsel in March 2001 filed an attorney’s lien to
    secure his own fee from the judgment proceeds and moved to
    withdraw his appearance on Croley’s behalf. The court
    recognized the lien and granted the motion to withdraw.
    Croley received the court’s permission to proceed in forma
    pauperis.
    The RNC in January of 2002 paid $1,367,012.37—
    Croley’s jury award plus post-judgment interest to that date.
    The docket records a motion “for authority to deposit judgment
    proceeds into registry of court,” which the court granted with
    the specifications that the RNC’s payment satisfied the
    judgment and that defendants “are in no way responsible for
    the resolution of the fee dispute between [Croley] and [his]
    counsel.” Appendix (App.) 87. Croley’s counsel then moved
    to collect his fees, and the Superior Court distributed
    $115,579.39 to him in full satisfaction of the attorney’s lien.
    Croley’s damages apparently remained in possession of the
    court.
    6
    The docket reflects no further activity in Croley’s Superior
    Court case for more than three years, at which point an entry
    states: “Converted Court Ordered Escrow as of May 19, 2005.”
    App. 88.        That entry records the “amount paid” as
    $1,251,432.98, App. 88, a sum equal to the RNC’s payment
    minus the attorney’s lien, without interest from the time the
    court took possession of the payment in 2002. Only a few
    months later, the docket states: “Unclaimed escrow funds
    transferred to the US Treasury on 9/27/05,” with no further
    explanation or any suggestion that a court order directed such
    transfer. App. 88. The same docket entry then includes the
    notation “VOIDED UNDELIVERABLE.” App. 88. Croley
    alleges that, in fact, “defendant Superior Court never conveyed
    plaintiff Croley’s property to US Treasury,” but instead
    “constantly possessed plaintiff Croley’s property for itself,
    notwithstanding the misleading accounting reports and false
    statements of D.C. courts.” Compl. ¶ 19(d) n.3.
    Approximately two and a half years later, the docket
    shows that Croley, still acting pro se, sought possession of his
    money. On February 6, 2008, the Superior Court denied
    Croley’s “Motion to Return Money Paid to Court Register.”
    App. 88. Apparently recognizing that Croley’s $1.2 million
    was unaccounted for, the court’s order said in full:
    The Court cannot discern on the motion presented
    that the moving party is entitled to the funds. In
    addition the movant represents that the Court is no
    longer in possession of any funds. On this motion,
    the Court cannot find it has jurisdiction to order any
    return of funds that may now be in possession of the
    United States Treasury.
    Order Den. Pl.’s Mot. to Return Money Paid to Ct. Register,
    1985-CA-2075 (Feb. 5, 2008). Croley did not appeal that
    7
    order. According to the docket, activity in the case then ceased
    for five more years, until March 2013, when an attorney
    entered an appearance on Croley’s behalf, only to withdraw
    just over a year later, with Croley still empty-handed.
    Croley alleges that, all the while, he personally contacted
    the court repeatedly to collect his money, but administrative
    personnel misled him about its status and location. Compl.
    ¶¶ 19(d), 20. Court administrative staff, for example, “falsely
    advised” Croley to collect from the “Office of Unclaimed
    Funds,” although his funds remained in the court registry. Id.
    ¶ 37. In his attempts to gain possession of his money, Croley
    also alleges that he—like other disabled litigants in the D.C.
    court     system—was         repeatedly     denied     disability
    accommodations such as extra time and easy-to-navigate
    procedures. Id. ¶¶ 30-31. In one such instance, Croley alleges,
    he asked the court’s ADA coordinator to help him respond to
    his new attorney’s 2014 withdrawal motion, but the
    coordinator did not “direct Plaintiff Croley to published
    grievance procedures” or otherwise assist him. Id. ¶ 34(c)(i).
    Croley finally succeeded in bringing the matter to a head
    late in 2014. On September 17, Croley moved to “Restore
    Affirmed Judgment.” App. 89. On November 24, 2014,
    Croley, again pro se, filed the federal suit at issue in this appeal.
    That same day—a dozen years after the RNC paid the judgment
    into the court registry and Croley first sought to collect it—the
    D.C. Superior Court scheduled a status hearing on the funds
    and issued a Notice of Intent to Release Funds, that is, to pay
    Croley his money. The United States and the District of
    Columbia responded to the D.C. Superior Court’s Notice by
    affirmatively disclaiming any right or interest to the funds. On
    December 18, 2014, the court formally ordered disbursement.
    On January 14, 2015, nearly twenty years after he filed his
    personal injury suit in D.C. Superior Court and thirteen years
    8
    after the D.C. Court of Appeals sustained the verdict in his
    favor, Croley finally received the $1,251,432.98 the court had
    withheld: the total of the RNC’s payment minus Croley’s
    attorney’s lien, without any interest for the time the D.C.
    Superior Court had possession of the money.
    When the Superior Court ordered the disbursement, it
    described Croley’s case against the RNC as “closed,” and the
    court’s own authority as limited to issuing the order calling for
    release from the court registry. The Superior Court judge
    added at the hearing: “[I]f [Croley] had an issue with what the
    Superior Court did, then [he was] free to file a lawsuit on that.
    But filing it as part of this closed case was not appropriate.
    Because the District of Columbia Superior Court would have
    to be a party to that action and that party needs notice.” App.
    111-12.
    This case seeks to hold the Joint Committee responsible
    for the court administration’s role in the long delay Croley
    faced between winning his award and receiving it. The Joint
    Committee on Judicial Administration, composed of judges,
    manages general personnel policies, accounts and auditing, and
    procurement and disbursement for the D.C. court system. See
    
    D.C. Code § 11-1701
    (b). As the Joint Committee itself
    explains, it bears the “general administrative responsibilities
    for the local District of Columbia Courts.” Appellee’s Br. at 2.
    Although the complaint interchangeably charges “DC Courts,”
    the Superior Court, and the Court of Appeals with wrongdoing,
    it is fairly understood to refer to the courts insofar as they were
    inadequately administered by the Joint Committee, the entity
    the complaint names as “responsible for” the court system’s
    “policies.” Compl. ¶ 6; see id. ¶ 5.
    Croley’s pro se federal complaint raises two sets of claims.
    First, Croley claims the Joint Committee violated his property
    9
    rights. He alleges that the court system’s retention of the
    money judgment he won and its interference with his access to
    that award violated his rights under the Due Process and
    Takings Clauses of the United States Constitution, and under
    District of Columbia law governing theft, conversion, and
    unclaimed funds. Compl. ¶¶ 9-21, 35-44. Second, Croley
    claims that during the many years he sought to collect his
    money, administrative personnel in the D.C. court system
    violated federal disabilities law, including the ADA and
    Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Id. ¶¶ 23-34. He also
    alleges the court system failed to establish appropriate
    disability accommodation procedures, including by neglecting
    to affirmatively offer disabled litigants support or to conduct
    self-evaluations mandated by ADA regulation. Id. ¶¶ 25-26.
    For both sets of claims, the complaint seeks damages; it
    includes no plea for injunctive relief. Id. ¶¶ 21, 34(e), 44.
    Before the Joint Committee filed any responsive
    pleadings, the district court, on January 30, 2015, sua sponte
    dismissed Croley’s complaint. In a one-page opinion, it stated
    that “plaintiff asks this Court to review the rulings of the
    District of Columbia courts,” but that the court lacked
    jurisdiction to do so under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.
    Croley v. Joint Comm. on Judicial Admin., 
    2015 WL 511355
    ,
    at *1 (D.D.C. Feb. 4, 2015). Croley moved for reconsideration
    and sought recusal of the district court judge. The district court,
    with a new judge presiding because Croley’s case was not
    initially assigned to a specific judge’s docket, denied Croley’s
    motion to reconsider, and denied the recusal motion as moot.
    Croley v. Joint Comm. on Judicial Admin., No. 15-175, Docket
    No. 13 (D.D.C. Apr. 15, 2015). Croley, still pro se, appealed
    the court’s Rooker-Feldman dismissal order. On appeal,
    amicus counsel filed supplemental briefing on Croley’s behalf.
    10
    II.
    This appeal presents a single, threshold question: whether
    the Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars Croley’s federal complaint.
    Rooker-Feldman’s jurisdictional bar protects the Supreme
    Court’s certiorari jurisdiction under Section 1257 of Title 28 of
    the United States Code. It ensures that the United States
    Supreme Court is the only federal court to hear appeals from
    judgments rendered by the highest court of a state (or, as here,
    the District of Columbia). See D.C. Court of Appeals v.
    Feldman, 
    460 U.S. 462
    , 476 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Tr. Co.,
    
    263 U.S. 413
     (1923); see also Gray v. Poole, 
    275 F.3d 1113
    ,
    1119 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Operationally, the Rooker-Feldman
    doctrine “is confined to cases of the kind from which the
    doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by [i] state-court
    losers [ii] complaining of injuries caused by state-court
    judgments rendered before the [federal] district court
    proceedings commenced and [iii] inviting district court review
    and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi
    Basic Indus., 
    544 U.S. 280
    , 284 (2005). The Supreme Court
    has repeatedly emphasized that the doctrine is “narrow,”
    applicable to bar only complaints that meet those listed
    conditions. Id.; see Skinner v. Switzer, 
    562 U.S. 521
    , 531
    (2011); Lance v. Dennis, 
    546 U.S. 459
    , 464 (2006); see also
    Singletary v. D.C., 
    766 F.3d 66
    , 71 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Indeed,
    the only two cases in which the Supreme Court has ever applied
    the doctrine to dismiss an action are the Rooker and Feldman
    namesake cases themselves. See Exxon Mobil Corp., 
    544 U.S. at 283
    .
    We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of
    Croley’s complaint on Rooker-Feldman grounds. See Whole
    Foods, 789 F.3d at 150. The district court had subject-matter
    jurisdiction over Croley’s federal law claims under 
    26 U.S.C. § 1331
    , and supplemental jurisdiction over the related D.C. law
    11
    claims under 
    28 U.S.C. § 1367
    (a); we have jurisdiction to
    review the district court’s decision under 
    28 U.S.C. § 1291
    .
    We consider first Croley’s property claims, then his disability
    claims, to determine whether they are impermissible de facto
    appeals from D.C. courts’ judgments. The Joint Committee
    contends that Croley’s claims call for review of six identified
    orders: (1) the Superior Court’s order barring evidence of brain
    injury as sanction for Croley’s failure to timely submit to a
    physical examination and (2) the District of Columbia Court of
    Appeals order affirming it; and the Superior Court’s orders (3)
    authorizing the RNC in 2002 to deposit funds in satisfaction of
    the judgment; (4) disbursing money to Croley’s former
    attorneys in 2002 pursuant to the attorney’s lien; (5) denying in
    2008 Croley’s motion to release the funds for want of
    information about his entitlement and the funds’ location; and
    (6) denying in 2014 Croley’s motion for an extension of time
    to oppose his attorney’s withdrawal motion. The Joint
    Committee does not contend that Croley’s complaint
    challenges any other orders of the Superior Court or Court of
    Appeals.
    We reject the Joint Committee’s theory and reverse and
    remand to the district court because Rooker-Feldman does not
    bar Croley’s claims: (i) He was a state-court winner, not a
    loser. (ii) The harms of which the current suit complains flow,
    not from any District of Columbia court judgment, but from
    administrative handling of money the RNC paid to the court in
    final satisfaction of a judgment. (iii) Croley’s case seeks
    review and rejection not of any state-court judgment, but of the
    adequacy under property and disability law of court
    administrators’ handling of funds entrusted to them on Croley’s
    behalf after the state court entered its judgment. See Exxon
    Mobil Corp., 522 U.S. at 284.
    12
    A.
    Croley first alleges that the Joint Committee violated his
    property rights by retaining and failing to distribute to him the
    money judgment he won and the RNC paid to the court
    registry. The court deemed the RNC’s tort judgment satisfied,
    it paid out a portion of Croley’s winnings to counsel to cover
    his fee, but then retained the balance of the funds for more than
    thirteen years. No District of Columbia court order required
    court administrators to withhold Croley’s money from him, and
    no such order is on appeal here.
    Croley rests his property claims on both D.C. law and the
    United States Constitution. He brings common-law claims for
    conversion and theft, Compl. ¶ 43, as well as for violation of
    the D.C. unclaimed funds law, 
    D.C. Code § 41-101
     et seq.,
    which calls on the city to take possession of unclaimed property
    and to notify the property’s owner, 
    id.
     §§ 41-118, 41-120;
    Compl. ¶ 37. Croley also alleges that the Joint Committee
    violated the Due Process and Takings Clauses of the United
    States Constitution when courthouse personnel obfuscated the
    location of his funds, thus effectively “seiz[ing]” them and
    “disrupt[ing]” his access to them. See Compl. ¶¶ 13, 20. Those
    claims are based on Croley’s allegation that administrative
    personnel in the D.C. court system “falsely advised” him to
    collect his award from an “Office of Unclaimed Funds” and
    otherwise failed to meet statutory obligations. Id. ¶ 37. He
    seeks “punitive damages, costs, interest and fees as allowed by
    law.” Id. ¶ 21.
    The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars review only of judicial
    orders, see Feldman, 
    460 U.S. at 486
    , but Croley’s challenge is
    to administrative conduct, not any judicial order. When “the
    proceedings giving rise to the rule are non-judicial[,] the
    policies prohibiting United States District Court review of final
    13
    state-court judgments are not implicated” and “
    28 U.S.C. § 1257
     does not act as a bar to the District Court’s
    consideration of the case.” Feldman, 
    460 U.S. at 486
    ; see also
    Singletary, 766 F.3d at 72; Stanton v. D.C. Court of Appeals,
    
    127 F.3d 72
    , 75 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The Joint Committee at oral
    argument recognized that if the D.C. Clerk’s Office or other
    administrative entities misled Croley regarding the
    whereabouts of his property, such misdeeds would not be
    barred by Rooker-Feldman. See Oral Arg. Tr. 48:15-50:12,
    61:8-14. Croley’s complaint on its face challenges precisely
    such administrative misdeeds. Compl. ¶¶ 19, 19(d).
    Croley’s property claims arise out of allegations of false
    and misleading conduct by the Clerk’s Office or other
    administrative staff: “DC Courts persistently [misled] plaintiff
    Croley and various attorneys as to the location and status of
    plaintiff Croley’s property,” including when “DC Courts
    falsely advised [they] had conveyed plaintiff Croley’s property
    to the ‘US Treasury’ without further specification.” Compl.
    ¶ 19(d); see id. ¶ 37. Croley plausibly alleges that he contacted
    court administrators several times after the Court of Appeals
    affirmed the tort award in his favor and the court registry
    accepted payment in his behalf. See id. ¶ 19(d). As described
    above, each time Croley attempted to collect the money, the
    registry retained it and, each time, the disbursement process
    failed him. It is the actions of administrators, outside and
    independent of D.C. judicial proceedings, that Croley alleges
    frustrated collection of that judgment. Those actions do not
    implicate Rooker-Feldman’s bar.
    The Joint Committee’s assertion that Croley seeks reversal
    of the Superior Court’s 2008 order denying his request for
    disbursement is unconvincing. The 2008 order, which stated
    that the $1.2 million was lost to court records, could indeed be
    appealed only to the D.C. Court of Appeals or ultimately to the
    14
    Supreme Court. Croley’s complaint, though, invokes that
    order only by way of background. See Compl. ¶ 18. The
    complaint does not seek to appeal the order itself—in fact, the
    Superior Court’s 2015 disbursement order has already
    superseded the 2008 order denying payment, and Croley by no
    means asks to collect his judgment anew from the RNC. To
    the contrary, Croley here raises independent claims about
    administrators’ conduct; those claims are not barred even to the
    extent that he seeks in the process to “den[y] a legal conclusion
    that a state court has reached in a case to which he was a party.”
    Exxon Mobil Corp., 
    544 U.S. at 293
    . Conflict between a
    conclusion of the state court and an independent claim against
    a different defendant in federal court might call for some sort
    of preclusion analysis once the court asserts its jurisdiction, but
    not the Rooker-Feldman jurisdictional bar. 
    Id.
    Croley’s property claims against the Joint Committee call
    for neither federal review nor reversal of any D.C. court order
    entered in his wholly distinct, closed tort case against the RNC.
    After all, Croley won in state court. That court entered final
    judgment in his favor. Croley’s property claims against the
    Joint Committee allege different harms from the assault-based
    claims at issue in his suit against the RNC. They seek to
    enforce his legal rights against a different defendant, and seek
    a different remedy. Accordingly, lower federal court review of
    Croley’s property claims is not an effort to appeal the D.C.
    court’s judgment and is not barred by Rooker-Feldman.
    B.
    Croley’s second set of claims alleges that, in his effort to
    gain possession of money paid to the court registry to satisfy
    his state court judgment, he was harmed by the D.C. court
    system’s lack of the requisite policies and procedures for
    disability accommodation. He alleges, in particular, that the
    15
    Joint Committee failed to meet its “affirmative obligation”
    under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act “to accommodate
    persons with disabilities in the administration of justice” during
    the underlying litigation and, more importantly, award
    payment. Tennessee v. Lane, 
    541 U.S. 509
    , 533 (2004); see
    Compl. ¶¶ 23-28; see also Americans with Disabilities Act, 
    42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-34
    ; Rehabilitation Act, 
    29 U.S.C. § 701
     et
    seq. Croley also alleges the Joint Committee failed to meet its
    obligations under the ADA’s implementing regulations: He
    complains that it followed neither the self-assessment
    requirements imposed by 
    28 C.F.R. § 35.105
    , see Compl. ¶ 25
    n.4, nor the requirement to designate an ADA coordinator and
    to create grievance procedures per 
    28 C.F.R. § 35.107
    , see
    Compl. ¶ 34(c). For the Joint Committee’s failure to establish
    an appropriate disability accommodation “policy,” id. ¶¶ 5, 30,
    34(b), Croley seeks damages, id. ¶ 34(e).
    These claims, too, are not barred by Rooker-Feldman. As
    the Supreme Court made clear in Feldman, lower federal courts
    may review a “general challenge” to an administrative rule or
    policy without impermissibly reviewing or reversing a
    particular state court judgment that assumed the policy was
    valid. 
    460 U.S. at 483
    ; see 
    id. at 484-86
    ; Stanton, 
    127 F.3d at 75-76
     (recognizing that review of “general challenges” is
    “permissible” when it does not functionally compel reversal of
    specific state court decisions). Croley’s federal disability claim
    “does not seek to ‘review’ or ‘undo’ any D.C.-court decision.”
    Singletary, 766 F.3d at 72. It instead challenges alleged
    shortfalls in the Joint Committee’s administrative policies.
    As discussed, Croley claims the Committee lacked
    requisite policies for responding to and assisting pro se litigants
    with cognitive or emotional disabilities. See, e.g., Compl.
    ¶¶ 25-27. He alleges that “DC courts regard[] disability
    accommodation as a contested issue, to be repeatedly
    16
    determined and re-determined as a matter of ongoing
    controversy throughout the course of each action before DC
    Courts.” Id. ¶ 34(b); see id. ¶ 34(d). A court system in
    compliance with its affirmative federal obligations, Croley
    contends, would have as a matter of course afforded disabled
    litigants like him appropriate accommodations and would have
    published “clear, simple . . . procedures” for navigating the
    court’s requirements. Id. ¶ 30. Croley’s complaint provides
    several “specific examples,” id. ¶ 34, of administrative failures
    to meet those obligations, including court administrators’
    refusal to help him understand and access procedures for filing
    grievances against counsel and make various other complaints,
    see id. ¶¶ 34(c)(i)-(ii).
    The Joint Committee artificially construes Croley’s
    disability claims as limited to those specific examples and
    mischaracterizes Croley’s claims as appeals of adverse rulings
    in an attempt to cast this case in Rooker-Feldman’s mold. See
    Appellee’s Br. 27-30; Oral Arg. Tr. 53:16-19; see also Compl.
    ¶ 34. The Committee invokes two rulings in particular: The
    Superior Court, as a sanction for Croley’s failure to timely
    submit to a physical examination, prohibited Croley from
    introducing evidence of his brain injury, see 
    759 A.2d at
    686-
    88, 696-702, and the court refused to grant him an extension of
    time to respond to his counsel’s withdrawal motion, see App.
    88. If Croley’s complaint were a challenge to those orders,
    Rooker-Feldman could conceivably bar federal review.
    As discussed above, however, Croley’s complaint
    expressly makes a broader, general challenge to the District of
    Columbia courts’ policies, Compl. ¶¶ 5, 30, 34(b), based on
    distinct harms it caused him: making it unduly hard for him,
    with his disabilities, to participate effectively in the litigation,
    and causing his property to be long withheld from him without
    clear means reasonably accessible to him for gaining
    17
    possession of it. The Joint Committee recognized at argument
    that Croley’s complaint “clearly” levies “general policy-like”
    challenges, independent of challenges to specific D.C. court
    orders. See Oral Arg. Tr. 54:4-11; see also id. at 51:10-54:11,
    47:18-48:2. The different party he sues and the distinct
    damages he seeks confirm that federal review of his challenge
    to the court’s disability policies would not disturb the state
    court’s orders. See Gray, 
    275 F.3d at 1119
    . Croley seeks
    damages from the Joint Committee for the physical and
    emotional costs he alleges he incurred navigating a court
    system bereft of appropriate accommodations; the complaint
    can be read to allege such harms both during the litigation
    against the RNC and in the period after its conclusion when
    Croley sought to gain access to his money. Another measure
    of his damages might be the time value of the $1.2 million since
    2002—after the RNC paid, while the court system withheld
    it—which he could not have received in his suit in D.C. court,
    but which he claims he would have accrued on his own account
    had requisite procedures been in place.
    Whether those damages are available, and in what
    measure, turns largely on what the ADA guarantees to litigants
    in Croley’s position. That question, however, speaks to the
    merits of Croley’s claim rather than to whether lower federal
    courts have jurisdiction to assess it. To be clear, to the extent
    Croley’s complaint seeks damages based on counterfactual
    court victories Croley might have won against the RNC had the
    court not denied him enlarged time or limited his proof of brain
    injury, Rooker-Feldman is a bar. But Croley has pleaded a
    distinct federal claim challenging the Joint Committee’s failure
    to afford ADA-compliant accommodation to disabled litigants.
    The ADA “authorizes private citizens to bring suits for money
    damages,” Lane, 
    541 U.S. at
    517 (citing 
    42 U.S.C. § 12133
    ),
    and Croley’s complaint that the Committee lacked procedures
    to reasonably accommodate cognitively or emotionally
    18
    disabled litigants would, if meritorious, be remediable. The
    question of whether such claims would succeed on the merits
    presents no jurisdictional Rooker-Feldman problem.
    III.
    The Joint Committee maintains that, even were we to
    reverse the district court’s Rooker-Feldman ruling, we should
    affirm its dismissal of Croley’s complaint on non-jurisdictional
    grounds, such as judicial immunity, preclusion, or failure to
    state a legally cognizable claim including, for example,
    whether Croley would have a private right of action under the
    ADA’s implementing regulations. We decline to reach those
    issues. We therefore reverse the district court’s threshold
    jurisdictional dismissal and remand for the district court to
    consider the complaint anew. Motions to amend the complaint,
    or to dismiss it on grounds other than Rooker-Feldman, are for
    the district court to consider in the first instance on remand.
    So ordered.