Galibois v. Fisher

Not for Publication in West's Federal Reporter
Citation Limited Pursuant to 1st Cir. Loc. R. 32.3
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 05-1576
JOSEPH F. GALIBOIS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
JOHN FISHER, SERGEANT,
NASHUA POLICE DEPARTMENT,
Defendant, Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Joseph A. DiClerico, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Lynch and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Joseph F. Balibois on brief pro se.
Eric Kane and Devine, Millimet & Branch, PA on brief for
appellee.
March 31, 2006
Per Curiam. Pro se appellant Joseph Galibois appeals the
dismissal of his civil rights action by the United States District
Court for the District of New Hampshire. According to his
complaint, Galibois's constitutional rights to free expression, due
process, and equal protection were violated on the day of the last
presidential election when police in Nashua, New Hampshire,
interfered with Galibois's campaign demonstration against candidate
John Kerry. The court dismissed the suit as barred by the so-
called Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co.,
263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals v.
Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). We vacate the dismissal and remand
for further proceedings.
Two days after the alleged campaign incident, Galibois filed
a civil rights suit in New Hampshire Superior Court. The case was
dismissed for failure to state a claim. No leave to amend was
granted and Galibois did not seek to appeal the judgment. Instead,
he abandoned his state court case and filed a new, similar action
in federal court on November 24, 2004. The federal case was
dismissed on February 15, 2005. Galibois now appeals.
Citing Badillo-Santiago v. Naveira-Merly, 378 F.3d 1, 6 (1st
Cir. 2004) ("Rooker-Feldman applies to state or territorial court
judgments to which federal courts would accord preclusive
effect."), the lower court first determined that, under New
Hampshire law, the state court judgment had preclusive effect
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because Galibois never sought leave to amend the complaint. Since
Galibois's federal claims arose "from the same incident and
involve[d] the same factual scenario as the claim he alleged in the
state court petition," the court concluded that Galibois, in
essence, was seeking federal review of the state decision. Such
review being beyond the jurisdiction of a federal district court,
the court dismissed the case.
Subsequent to the district court judgment, the Supreme Court
issued an opinion that "substantially altered [the] understanding
of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine." Federacion de Maestros de Puerto
Rico v. Junta de Relaciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, 410 F.3d
17, 19 (1st Cir. 2005). In Exxon-Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic
Industries Corp., 125 S.Ct. 1517, 1521 (2005), the Court made clear
that Rooker-Feldman had "sometimes been construed to extend far
beyond [its original] contours" to the point that it threatened to
supersede ordinary rules of preclusion. Such an expansive reading
was contrary to the congressional mandate, under the Full Faith and
Credit Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1738, that state law, not a uniform federal
rule, should govern the preclusive effect of state court judgments.
Lance v. Dennis, 126 S.Ct. 1198, 1202 (2006). Consequently, the
Rooker-Feldman rule, henceforth, should be "confined to cases of
the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name." Specifically,
the doctrine applies only to "limited circumstances" where "the
losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the
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state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the
state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that
judgment." Id. at 1526. On the other hand, "[i]f a federal
plaintiff 'present[s] some independent claim, albeit one that
denies a legal conclusion that a state court has reached in a case
to which he was a party . . . then there is jurisdiction and state
law determines whether the defendant prevails under principles of
preclusion.'" Id. at 1527 (quoting GASH Assocs. v. Village of
Rosemont, 995 F.2d 726, 728 (7th Cir. 1993));1 Lance, 126 S.Ct.
at 1202 ("Rooker-Feldman is not simply preclusion by another
name"). In other words, Exxon requires this court to examine
whether the state court loser who files suit in federal court seeks
redress for an injury caused by the state court decision itself or
for an injury cause by the defendant. "If a federal plaintiff
asserts as a legal wrong an allegedly erroneous decision by a state
court, and seeks relief from a state court judgment based on that
decision, Rooker-Feldman bars subject matter jurisdiction in
federal district court. If, on the other hand, a federal plaintiff
asserts as a legal wrong an allegedly illegal act or omission by an
1
The language quoted above is technically dictum, since Exxon
dealt with parallel state and federal proceedings. However, since
"the Supreme Court went beyond the facts of the case to give clear
instructions to the circuits on how to address additional factual
situations . . . , [failure to heed this language] would be to
ignore these unambiguous directives from the Supreme Court." Todd
v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis, Co., 434 F.3d 432, 437 (6th Cir.
2006).
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adverse party, Rooker-Feldman does not bar jurisdiction." Noel v.
Hall, 341 F.3d 1148, 1164 (9th Cir. 2003)2; see Washington v.
Willmore, 407 F.3d 274, 280 (4th Cir. 2005) (holding, post Exxon,
that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply because
"[plaintiff's] claim of injury rests not on the state court
judgment itself, but rather on the alleged violation of his
constitutional rights [by the defendant]"); Todd v. Weltman,
Weinberg & Reis, Co., 434 F.3d 432, 437 (6th Cir. 2006); Jensen v.
Foley, 295 F.3d 745, 747-48 (7th Cir. 2002) ("The Rooker-Feldman
doctrine, generally speaking, bars a plaintiff from bringing a §
1983 suit to remedy an injury inflicted by the state court's
decision . . . Preclusion, on the other hand, applies when a
federal plaintiff complains of an injury that was not caused by the
state court, but which the state court has previously failed to
rectify.") (emphasis in original).
In the instant case, Galibois sought relief not from an injury
allegedly caused by the state court but from an injury allegedly
inflicted by the defendant. That his federal claim alleged
injuries similar to those that he raised or could have raised in
his state claim, while arguably relevant to preclusion analysis,
2
The Seventh Circuit has suggested the following as a "rough
guide" for determining whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applied:
"if the federal plaintiff was the plaintiff in state court, apply
res judicata; if the federal plaintiff was the defendant in state
court, apply Rooker-Feldman." Garry v. Geils, 82 F.3d 1362, 1366-67
(7th Cir. 1996).
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does not bring Rooker-Feldman into play. See Noel, 341 F.3d at
1165 (explaining that it was "error" for the lower court to
conclude that "because [the same claims] could have been raised in
the parties' [state] litigation, or were already specifically
addressed in that litigation, the federal claims are barred under
Rooker-Feldman").
Turning, then, to the issue of preclusion, we must, pursuant
to 28 U.S.C. § 1738, "give the same preclusive effect to state
court judgments that those judgments would be given in the courts
of the State from which the judgments emerged." Kremer v. Chemical
Constr. Corp., 456 U.S. 461, 466 (1982). Under New Hampshire law,
a dismissal for failure to state a claim has preclusive effect only
if the plaintiff is given leave to amend. See, e.g., Cambridge
Mutual Fire Ins. Co. v. Crete, 846 A.2d 521, 526 (N.H. 2004). To
assure that this requirement has "practical meaning, . . the trial
court must allow the plaintiff opportunity to amend the writ before
dismissing for failure to state a claim, allowing the plaintiff two
chances to state a case before precluding the plaintiff from
burdening the courts and opposing parties with further attempts."
Id. Although leave to amend may be implicit, Warren v. Town of
East Kingston, 761 A.2d 465, 468 (N.H. 2000), Galibois's assertion
that the Superior Court gave no implicit, much less explicit, leave
to amend is uncontested at this point. Furthermore, once the court
dismissed the case and rendered final judgment, the court was
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without authority to grant leave to amend even if Galibois had so
requested. Arsenault v. Scanlon, 660 A.2d 1110, 1111-12 (N.H.
1995). In these circumstances, we cannot say that Galibois was
given a "meaningful" opportunity to amend his complaint. Thus,
under New Hampshire law, he presumably had the right to refile his
claim in state court within one year of the judgment, N.H. Rev.
Stat. § 508:10; Moulton-Garland v. Cabletron Sys., Inc., 736 A.2d
1219, 1220-21 (N.H. 1999). On this record, then, he is not
precluded from bringing a similar suit in federal court.
We need go no further. The dismissal of the complaint is
vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings. Costs
are to be taxed in favor of the appellant.
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