Stewart Merritts, Jr. v. Leslie Richards

PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
____________
No. 19-1335
___________
STEWART MERRITTS, JR.,
Appellant
v.
LESLIE RICHARDS, in both her official and individual
capacity as an official of the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation; EDWARD BETTWY, in both his official and
individual capacity as an official of the Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation; MARK CHAPPELL, in both
his official and individual capacity as an official of the
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation;
PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION; COMMONWEALTH OF
PENNSYLVANIA
____________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 3-18-cv-00212)
District Judge: Honorable Kim R. Gibson
Argued: January 12, 2021
Before: AMBRO, KRAUSE, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges.

Judge Ambro took senior status on February 6, 2023.
(Filed: March 16, 2023)
____________
Stewart Merritts, Jr.
39947 Rivers Edge Lane
Lovettsville, VA 20180
Pro Se Appellant
Johanna Dennehy
John L. Jacobus
Laura A. Lane-Steele [ARGUED]
Alice E. Loughran
STEPTOE & JOHNSON
1330 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Court-Appointed Amici Curiae in Support of Appellant
Stewart Merritts, Jr.
Anthony T. Kovalchick
Kemal A. Mericli
Daniel B. Mullen
OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF PENNSYLVANIA
1251 Waterfront Place
Mezzanine Level
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
Caleb C. Enerson [ARGUED]
PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRY
Office of General Counsel
651 Boas Street
10th Floor
Harrisburg, PA 17121
Counsel for Appellees Leslie Richards, Edward
Bettwy, Mark Chappell, Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation, and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
2
___________
OPINION OF THE COURT
___________
PHIPPS, Circuit Judge.
U.S. Route 22 spans about 650 miles, from Newark, New
Jersey in the east, through Pennsylvania and West Virginia,
into Ohio, with a western terminus in Cincinnati. To improve
a one-mile stretch of the highway in Frankstown Township,
Pennsylvania, outside of Altoona, the Pennsylvania
Department of Transportation, commonly referred to as
‘PennDOT,’ sought two right-of-way easements from a nearby
parcel of land for new drainage pipes and their installation.
Together, the easements covered less than one-tenth of an acre,
but the property owner, Stewart Merritts, Jr., a citizen of
Virginia, opposed those encumbrances on his land. PennDOT
initiated a condemnation action, and over Merritts’s objections,
it acquired title to and possession of the easements.
With no success in that state-court proceeding, Merritts
commenced this suit in District Court claiming that
PennDOT’s acquisition of the easements and the compensation
offered for them violates the U.S. Constitution and
Pennsylvania law. None of his claims got far in District Court.
In response to a motion to dismiss by the defendants –
Pennsylvania, PennDOT, and three PennDOT officials in their
official and individual capacities – the District Court dismissed
all claims with prejudice, some based on Eleventh Amendment
immunity, the remainder under Burford abstention, a doctrine
that protects “complex state administrative processes from
undue federal interference.” New Orleans Pub. Serv., Inc. v.
Council of City of New Orleans (NOPSI), 491 U.S. 250, 362
(1989).
3
Through this timely appeal, Merritts challenges the
dismissal of some of his claims for constitutional violations,
which he brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He argues that his
§ 1983 claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against the
PennDOT officials in their official capacities should have
survived dismissal under the Eleventh Amendment due to the
Ex parte Young exception. He also contends that the District
Court erred in dismissing his § 1983 claims for damages
against the PennDOT officials in their individual capacities
under Burford abstention. Through supplemental briefing, the
parties have also addressed whether any of Merritts’s § 1983
claims against the PennDOT officials in their individual
capacities are jurisdictionally barred under Rooker-Feldman as
impermissible appeals of state-court judgments.
On de novo review, Merritts’s § 1983 claims for damages
against the PennDOT officials in their individual capacities for
a denial of just compensation should not have been dismissed.
But the remainder of his § 1983 claims cannot proceed in
District Court. The Ex parte Young exception does not allow
Merritts’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against
the PennDOT officials in their official capacities because he
does not seek prospective relief from an ongoing violation.
Merritts’s § 1983 claims for damages against the PennDOT
officials in their individual capacities for allegedly unlawfully
acquiring the easements for PennDOT cannot be dismissed
under Burford abstention, but they are jurisdictionally barred
under Rooker-Feldman because they seek impermissible
review and rejection of the judgment in the condemnation
proceeding. Although several of his § 1983 claims needed to
be dismissed on Eleventh Amendment and Rooker-Feldman
grounds, those dismissals should have been without prejudice.
Thus, we will vacate the District Court’s judgment and remand
with instructions to adjudicate Merritts’s § 1983 just-
compensation-related claims for damages against the
PennDOT officials in their individual capacities and to dismiss
the remainder of his claims without prejudice.
4
I. BACKGROUND
In 2016, as part of improving U.S. Route 22 near Canoe
Creek State Park in Blair County, PennDOT sought to
modernize the Flowing Springs Road intersection. Part of that
project involved replacing the existing drainage pipes with
wider ones. To do so, PennDOT sought two easements on
Merritts’s one-and-a-half-acre property: a drainage easement
with an area of 1,150 square feet and a two-year construction
easement with an area of 2,896 square feet. PennDOT offered
$400 for the first easement and $100 for the second. Merritts
rejected those offers, so PennDOT commenced an in rem
condemnation action in the Court of Common Pleas for Blair
County. To initiate that proceeding, PennDOT filed a
declaration of taking, which, when coupled with the offer to
pay compensation, conferred title to the easements to
PennDOT and enabled it to later obtain a writ of possession.
See 26 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 302, 307(a).
Merritts disputed the declaration of taking by filing
preliminary objections. Procedurally, those objections are the
exclusive means in a condemnation action in Pennsylvania
court for challenging a taking and the transfer of title, see id.§ 306(a)(3); W. Whiteland Assocs. v. Pa. Dep’t of Transp.,
690 A.2d 1266, 1268 & n.1 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1997), but they
may not be used to contest the amount of compensation
offered, see 26 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 306(b); In re Condemnation
by Pa. Dep’t of Transp., of Right of Way for State Route 79,
Section W10, 798 A.2d 725, 731–32 (Pa. 2002). Pennsylvania
law instead permits a property owner to dispute the amount of
compensation by filing a petition for the appointment of
viewers to assess the value of the condemned property, but
Merritts did not file such a petition. See 26 Pa. Cons. Stat.
§ 502; see also id. § 504(a)(1) (requiring a court to appoint
three viewers).
After holding an evidentiary hearing on Merritts’s
preliminary objections, the Common Pleas Court overruled
them and granted PennDOT a writ of possession. On appeal,
5
the Commonwealth Court affirmed that judgment, and Merritts
let lapse the time for petitioning the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court to review that decision. See Pa. R. App. P. 1113(a)
(allowing thirty days for such a petition).1
Merritts then sought federal-court review of the
Commonwealth Court’s order. Thirty days after that order, he
removed the case to the United States District Court for the
Western District of Pennsylvania. See In re Condemnation by
Pa. Dep’t of Transp., of Right-of-Way for State Route 0022,
Section 034, 2018 WL 4100032, at *1 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 28,
2018). But the thirty days permitted for removal starts upon a
defendant’s receipt of the initial pleading or summons – not
upon an adverse order from a state appellate court.
See 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1). PennDOT, however, did not
object within the thirty days permitted for challenging the
untimeliness of the removal. See In re Right-of-Way for State
Route 0022, 2018 WL 4100032, at *2; see also 28 U.S.C.
§ 1447(c). Instead, it moved to dismiss the removed action.
See In re Right-of-Way for State Route 0022, 2018 WL
4100032, at *1. The District Court granted that motion
principally on Rooker-Feldman grounds and remanded the
case to state court. See id. at *3; see also id. at *4–5
(identifying Burford abstention and the well-pleaded
complaint rule as alternative bases for dismissal). After
moving unsuccessfully for reconsideration, see In re
Condemnation by Pa. Dep’t of Transp. of Right-of-Way for
State Route 0022, Section 034, in the Twp. of Frankstown,
351 F. Supp. 3d 943, 947 (W.D. Pa. 2018), Merritts appealed,
and this Court dismissed his case for lack of appellate
jurisdiction. See In re Condemnation by Pa. Dep’t of Transp.,
of Right-of-Way for State Route 022, Section 034, in the Twp.
of Frankstown, 2019 WL 13220103, at *1 (3d Cir. June 10,
1
Much later, after he filed this appeal, Merritts unsuccessfully
petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for leave to file an
out-of-time petition for review of the Commonwealth Court’s
decision.
6
2019); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d); Trans Penn Wax Corp. v.
McCandless, 50 F.3d 217, 222 (3d Cir. 1995).
Having lost his removal gambit in the condemnation action,
Merritts filed this suit against the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, PennDOT, and three PennDOT officials in their
official and individual capacities. His complaint included
several claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of
his constitutional rights for which he sought $500,000 in
compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages, as
well as declaratory and injunctive relief. Many of those claims
challenged PennDOT’s acquisition of the easements: Merritts
asserted that it was an unlawful taking, an unreasonable
seizure, and a violation of substantive and procedural due
process. He also claimed that the amount of compensation that
PennDOT offered for the easements was unjust and that the
defendants conspired to offer him a deficient amount. In
addition to those § 1983 claims, Merritts pursued an array of
claims under Pennsylvania law, seeking the same relief.2
The defendants moved to dismiss the case for a lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction and for a failure to state a claim for
relief. The District Court granted that motion and dismissed
Merritts’s complaint with prejudice. Merritts v. Richards,
2019 WL 176182, at *7 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2019). It rejected
the claims against the Commonwealth, PennDOT, and the
PennDOT officials in their official capacities due to Eleventh
Amendment immunity. Id. at *3–6. And it denied the
2
Those claims were for negligence, gross negligence,
conversion, trespass, civil conspiracy, and violations of
Article I, § 1 and § 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. In their
motion to dismiss, the defendants did not specifically attack the
plausibility of any of these claims, nor did they address
whether, as a matter of law, Pennsylvania recognizes a
freestanding civil cause of action for violations of any
provisions of its constitution.
7
remaining individual-capacity claims against the PennDOT
officials under Burford abstention. Id. at *6–7.
Merritts timely appealed that final order, bringing the case
within this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291. Although he had counsel in District Court, Merritts
represents himself on appeal. His opening brief challenged
two facets of the District Court’s judgment. First, it invoked
the Ex parte Young exception to argue that the claims for
declaratory and injunctive relief against the PennDOT officials
should have survived dismissal. Second, it disputed the
dismissal of the § 1983 claims for damages against the
PennDOT officials in their individual capacities under Burford
abstention.
Following the briefing of those issues, we appointed amicus
counsel to argue in favor of reversing the District Court’s
judgment. With the benefit of the participation of amicus
counsel,3 the panel also requested supplemental briefing on
three topics: Rooker-Feldman, claim preclusion, and the effect
(if any) of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Knick
v. Township of Scott, 139 S. Ct. 2162 (2019), on the
availability of sovereign immunity for federal takings claims.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Merritts’s Claims for Injunctive and
Declaratory Relief Against the PennDOT
Officials Are Not Permitted under Ex parte
Young.
Under the Ex parte Young exception, Eleventh Amendment
immunity gives way so that a state official may, under certain
conditions, be sued in federal court in his or her official
capacity by a citizen of another state for injunctive or
declaratory relief. See Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 155–56
3
We express gratitude for the pro bono services contributed by
appointed amicus counsel in this case.
8
(1908); see also Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe of Idaho,
521 U.S. 261, 269 (1997). Relying on that doctrine, Merritts
seeks to enjoin the three PennDOT officials in several respects:
from claiming ownership to his land; from physically intruding
onto the land; from denying him just compensation; and from
otherwise interfering with his property rights. Merritts also
seeks a declaratory judgment that his federal constitutional
rights have been violated. But for the Ex parte Young
exception to apply, there must be both an ongoing violation of
federal law and a request for relief that can be properly
characterized as prospective. See Verizon Md., Inc. v. Pub.
Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U.S. 635, 645 (2002). Merritts’s
claims do not satisfy either of those requirements.
First, there is no ongoing violation of federal law. Merritts
pursues injunctive and declaratory relief based on two claimed
past violations of federal law: acquiring the easements without
justification and not providing just compensation. Although
those earlier actions may have present effect, that does not
mean that they are ongoing. See Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S.
265, 277–78 (1986) (“Young has been focused on cases in
which a violation of federal law by a state official is ongoing
as opposed to cases in which federal law has been violated at
one time or over a period of time in the past . . . .”). Here, after
Merritts refused the offer of $500 for the easements, PennDOT
acquired them through a condemnation proceeding that
concluded before this lawsuit was filed. The lingering effects
of that discrete past action do not convert it into an ongoing
violation.
Second, Merritts does not request prospective relief. By
seeking an injunction to cure past injuries – PennDOT’s
alleged wrongful acquisition of the easements and the alleged
lack of just compensation – Merritts asks for a reparative
injunction. See Dan B. Dobbs & Caprice L. Roberts, Law of
Remedies § 2.9(1) (3d ed. 2018) (“The reparative injunction
requires defendant to restore plaintiff to a preexisting
entitlement.”). Such an injunction cannot be fairly
9
characterized as prospective. See Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S.
651, 668 (1974) (refusing to extend Ex parte Young to claims
that amounted to monetary relief for past wrongs even when
stylized as “equitable restitution”); see also Coeur d’Alene,
521 U.S. at 287–88 (declining to apply Ex parte Young to a
request to enjoin a state from continually using and interfering
with lands). For similar reasons, Merritts’s request for a
declaratory judgment also fails to seek prospective relief. See
Green v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 73 (1985) (“[T]he issuance of
a declaratory judgment in these circumstances would have
much the same effect as a full-fledged award of damages or
restitution by the federal court, the latter kinds of relief being
of course prohibited by the Eleventh Amendment.”).
Without meeting either of the Ex parte Young conditions,
the Eleventh Amendment prevents Merritts, himself a citizen
of Virginia, from bringing his claims against the PennDOT
officials in their official capacities for injunctive and
declaratory relief in federal court. See U.S. Const. amend. XI.
But Eleventh Amendment immunity is a “threshold, nonmerits
issue” that “does not entail any assumption by the court of
substantive law-declaring power,” Sinochem Int’l Co. v.
Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 433 (2007)
(internal quotation marks omitted), and a dismissal on that
basis, like dismissals for lack of jurisdiction, should normally
be without prejudice. See Aldossari ex rel. Aldossari v. Ripp,
49 F.4th 236, 262 (3d Cir. 2022). Thus, the dismissals of the
claims against Pennsylvania, PennDOT, and the PennDOT
officials in their official capacities should have been without
prejudice. Accordingly, we will vacate the District Court’s
order of dismissal with instructions on remand to dismiss the
claims against these parties without prejudice.4
4
Because a dismissal ‘with prejudice’ is generally “an
appealable final order under § 1291,” district courts may be
drawn to that phrase to signal that a ruling on a threshold issue
10
B. The District Court Erred in Abstaining under
Burford.
The District Court relied on Burford abstention to dismiss
all of Merritts’s § 1983 claims for damages against the
PennDOT officials in their individual capacities. See generally
Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315 (1943). Merritts now
argues that the District Court erred in doing so. He is correct.
The District Court overextended Burford abstention,
treating it as encompassing any challenge to the exercise of a
state’s eminent domain power. Although eminent domain is
“intimately involved with sovereign prerogative,” that alone
does not suffice for Burford abstention. La. Power & Light Co.
v. City of Thibodaux, 360 U.S. 25, 28 (1959). Instead, Burford
abstention protects “complex state administrative processes
is a final, appealable order. Camesi v. Univ. of Pittsburgh Med.
Ctr., 729 F.3d 239, 244 (3d Cir. 2013). But that practice
distances the term ‘with prejudice’ from its primary function,
which is to indicate that a judgment has preclusive effects. See
Papera v. Pa. Quarried Bluestone Co., 948 F.3d 607, 611 (3d
Cir. 2020) (“A dismissal with prejudice ‘operates as an
adjudication on the merits,’ so it ordinarily precludes future
claims.” (quoting Landon v. Hunt, 977 F.2d 829, 832–33 (3d
Cir. 1992))). And dismissals on threshold grounds, while
potentially final orders for purposes of appellate review, see
28 U.S.C. § 1291, typically should not have preclusive effects.
See Cottrell v. Alcon Lab’ys, 874 F.3d 154, 164 (3d Cir. 2017);
9 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice
and Procedure § 2369 (4th ed. 2022) (explaining that a
“dismissal for lack of jurisdiction, as is true of various other
threshold matters, is not an adjudication of a claim’s merits and
thus dismissing with prejudice would be premature”).
Consequently, a dismissal with prejudice on a threshold ground
should ordinarily be vacated and remanded with instructions
for the claim to be dismissed without prejudice. See Aldossari,
49 F.4th at 262.
11
from undue federal interference” in two specific
circumstances: “when there are ‘difficult questions of state law
bearing on policy problems of substantial public import” or
when federal review would disrupt “state efforts to establish a
coherent policy with respect to a matter of substantial public
concern.” NOPSI, 491 U.S. at 361–62 (quoting Colo. River
Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 814
(1976)); see Matusow v. Trans-Cnty. Title Agency, LLC,
545 F.3d 241, 247–48 (3d Cir. 2008). But even in those
situations, abstention is still “an extraordinary and narrow
exception to the ‘virtually unflagging obligation of the federal
courts to exercise the jurisdiction given them.’” Ky. W. Va.
Gas Co. v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm’n, 791 F.2d 1111, 1114 (3d
Cir. 1986) (quoting Colo. River, 424 U.S. at 817).
Consistent with that scope, Burford abstention does not
allow a federal court to dismiss claims for damages. See
Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U.S. 706, 721 (1996)
(“[W]hile we have held that federal courts may stay actions for
damages based on abstention principles, we have not held that
those principles support the outright dismissal or remand of
damages actions.”). Abstention doctrines are rooted in federal
courts’ historical equitable powers, and when a federal plaintiff
prays for damages, the equitable discretion upon which
abstention rests does not permit dismissal. See County of
Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 190 (1959)
(reversing the dismissal of a just compensation claim on
abstention grounds). But cf. Thibodaux, 360 U.S. at 30(affirming the stay of a just compensation suit pending the
resolution of a state challenge). Because Merritts’s § 1983
claims against the PennDOT officials in their individual
capacities seek damages, they cannot be dismissed on
abstention grounds. See Quackenbush, 517 U.S. at 721.
12
C. Under Rooker-Feldman, Merritts’s § 1983
Claims Related to the Unlawful Acquisition of
the Easements Must Be Dismissed.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prevents district courts from
mistakenly relying on their original jurisdiction to engage in
appellate review of state-court orders. See Verizon, 535 U.S.
at 644 n.3 (“The Rooker-Feldman doctrine merely recognizes
that 28 U.S.C. § 1331 is a grant of original jurisdiction, and
does not authorize district courts to exercise appellate
jurisdiction over state-court judgments, which Congress has
reserved to [the Supreme] Court . . . .” (citing 28 U.S.C.
§ 1257(a))); ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 622 (1989)
(“The Rooker-Feldman doctrine interprets 28 U.S.C. § 1257 as
ordinarily barring direct review in the lower federal courts of a
decision reached by the highest state court, for such authority
is vested solely in this Court.”). The doctrine’s namesake cases
– Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and
District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S.
462 (1983) – supply four conditions, which, when all satisfied,
require the dismissal of a claim for lack of jurisdiction. See
Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280,
284 (2005); Great W. Mining & Min. Corp. v. Fox Rothschild
LLP, 615 F.3d 159, 166 (3d Cir. 2010) (interpreting Exxon
Mobil as setting forth four Rooker-Feldman requirements for
appellate jurisdiction). Those four conditions may be
evaluated in any sequence, and an efficient approach here is to
analyze the two procedural conditions before the two
substantive conditions. See Hoblock v. Albany Cnty. Bd. of
Elections, 422 F.3d 77, 85 (2d Cir. 2005). In that order, the
necessary conditions for dismissal on Rooker-Feldman
grounds are the following:
1. The federal plaintiff must lose in a
state-court judicial proceeding;
2. The state-court judgment or decree
must be rendered before the federal
action was filed;
13
3. The federal plaintiff must invite the
review and rejection of the state-court
judgment; and
4. The federal plaintiff must complain of
injuries caused by the state-court
judgment.
See Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284; Great W. Mining, 615 F.3d
at 166.
For the reasons below, Merritts’s § 1983 claims for
damages premised on the allegedly unlawful acquisition of the
easements meet the four conditions for dismissal under
Rooker-Feldman, but his claims for denial of just
compensation and conspiracy to deny just compensation do
not.
1. State-Court Loser Status
One condition for Rooker-Feldman dismissal is that the
federal plaintiff must be a state-court loser. At the outset, this
requirement limits appellate jurisdiction to the review of
proceedings that were judicial in character, and not
“legislative, ministerial, or administrative” decisions.
Feldman, 460 U.S. at 479. From there, as a general rule, the
federal plaintiff must be a party to such a state-court
proceeding and have received an adverse ruling. See Lance v.
Dennis, 546 U.S. 459, 464 (2006) (per curiam); Johnson v.
De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005–06 (1994); Vuyanich v.
Smithton Borough, 5 F.4th 379, 388 (3d Cir. 2021); cf. Karcher
v. May, 484 U.S. 72, 77 (1987) (“[T]he general rule [is] that
one who is not a party or has not been treated as a party to a
judgment has no right to appeal therefrom.”). But in limited
instances, a non-party to the state-court judicial proceeding
may be a state-court loser for purposes of Rooker-Feldman.
That may occur, for example, in subpoena litigation: if a state
court rules against a non-party with respect to a subpoena, that
non-party may be a state-court loser. Cf. Union Planters Bank
Nat’l Ass’n v. Salih, 369 F.3d 457, 461–62 (5th Cir. 2004). A
14
non-party can also qualify as a state-court loser in other
situations, such as in the context of successor liability when a
judgment of a state court inflicts precisely the same legal injury
on a party and a non-party who is in a position to challenge that
ruling. See Lance, 546 U.S. at 466 n.2; Vuyanich, 5 F.4th at
388. But these exceptions are not coextensive with privity
principles under res judicata, and orthodox privity with a
losing party in state-court is not an automatic proxy for status
as a state-court loser under Rooker-Feldman. See Lance,
546 U.S. at 466; see also Lawlor v. Nat’l Screen Serv. Corp.,
349 U.S. 322, 329 & n.19 (1955) (identifying three “orthodox
categories of privies” as “those who control an action although
not parties to it . . . ; those whose interests are represented by
a party to the action . . . ; [and] successors in interest” (quoting
Restatement (First) of Judgments § 83 cmt. a (1942))).
Merritts is a state-court loser with respect to his claims for
damages under § 1983 premised on PennDOT’s allegedly
unlawful acquisition of the easements. The in rem
condemnation action qualifies as a state-court judicial
proceeding. See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 477 (“A judicial inquiry
investigates, declares and enforces liabilities as they stand on
present or past facts and under laws supposed already to exist.”
(quoting Prentis v. Atl. Coast Line Co., 211 U.S. 210, 226
(1908))). And PennDOT prevailed in that proceeding – it
obtained title to and a writ of possession for the two easements
that it previously lacked. Although that was an in rem action
to which Merritts was not a party, it still determined the status
of his property with respect to all possible interest holders,
including him as owner. See Restatement (First) of Judgments
§§ 2, 73; see also Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 727 (1877)
(“The law assumes that property is always in the possession of
its owner . . . .”). Since the state-court ruling in favor of
PennDOT in the in rem action had the same legal consequences
for Merritts as for his property, he qualifies as a state-court
loser for purposes of his § 1983 claims that are premised on the
unlawful acquisition of the easements. See Dorce v. City of
New York, 2 F.4th 82, 102 (2d Cir. 2021) (“Someone who loses
15
an ownership interest in property through a state in rem
foreclosure proceeding against the property has lost in state
court.”).
But Merritts is not a state-court loser with respect to his
just-compensation and conspiracy-to-deny-just-compensation
claims. Those claims hinge on a denial of just compensation,5
and because the obligation to provide such compensation arises
upon a taking, these claims actually depend on the correctness
of the judgment in the condemnation action. See Knick, 139 S.
Ct. at 2172 (“[A] property owner acquires an irrevocable right
to just compensation immediately upon a taking.”). Also, as a
matter of Pennsylvania procedure, just compensation cannot be
adjudicated in a condemnation proceeding. See 26 Pa. Cons.
Stat. § 306(b) (“Issues of compensation may not be raised by
preliminary objections.”); In re Right of Way for State Route
79, 798 A.2d at 731 (reserving issues of compensation for “the
second distinct proceeding,” the inverse condemnation action
(quoting W. Whiteland Assocs., 690 A.2d at 1268)). Because
the state-court ruling in the condemnation proceeding did not
(and could not) resolve any just compensation claims, Merritts
cannot be a state-court loser with respect to those claims.6
5
Conspiracy under § 1983 is not a freestanding claim, cf.
42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), but only a means of establishing
vicarious liability over a person who, absent the conspiracy,
would not be acting under color of state law. See In re
Orthopedic Bone Screw Prods. Liab. Litig., 193 F.3d 781, 789
(3d Cir. 1999). Thus, Merritts cannot succeed on his § 1983
claim alleging a conspiracy to deny just compensation without
establishing a denial of just compensation. See Dondero v.
Lower Milford Twp., 5 F.4th 355, 362 n.1 (3d Cir. 2021).
6
Another consequence of the inability to adjudicate just-
compensation claims in the condemnation action is that those
claims are not precluded under Pennsylvania law. See Balent
v. City of Wilkes-Barre, 669 A.2d 309, 313 (Pa. 1995) (“Res
judicata applies not only to claims actually litigated, but also
16
Without satisfying this condition, Rooker-Feldman does not
require the dismissal of the § 1983 claims against the
individual-capacity defendants related to just compensation.7
to claims which could have been litigated during the first
proceeding if they were part of the same cause of action.”);
Wilmington Tr., Nat’l Ass’n v. Unknown Heirs, 219 A.3d 1173,
1179 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2019) (“Under the doctrine of res
judicata, a judgment on the merits in a prior suit bars a second
suit on the same cause of action or one that could have been
brought in the prior action.”); see also 28 U.S.C. § 1738;
Turner v. Crawford Square Apartments III, L.P., 449 F.3d 542,
548 (3d Cir. 2006) (“In determining the applicability of
principles of res judicata, we must give the same preclusive
effect to the judgment in the common pleas court case that the
courts in Pennsylvania, the state in which the judgment was
entered, would give.”).
7
The holding that these claims are not jurisdictionally
foreclosed by Rooker-Feldman does not validate the legal
viability of just-compensation claims under § 1983 against
individual-capacity defendants who did not personally acquire
any interests in the property taken. That is an open question in
this Circuit and one on which other courts have reached
different conclusions. Compare Asociación de Subscripción
Conjunta del Seguro de Responsabilidad Obligatorio v. Flores
Galarza, 484 F.3d 1, 25–26 (1st Cir. 2007) (declining to
exclude individual-capacity suits for denial of just
compensation from the reach of § 1983 despite a recognition
that the amount of liability in such suits would be “ruinous and
probably uncollectible”), with Vicory v. Walton, 730 F.2d 466,
467 (6th Cir. 1984) (finding no support for the contention “that
an individual may commit, and be liable in damages for, a
‘taking’ under the fifth amendment”). That issue, along with
qualified immunity and the type of damages available for
individual-capacity just compensation claims, if actionable
under § 1983, see generally Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247,
17
2. Prior State-Court Judgment
Another necessary condition for dismissal under Rooker-
Feldman is that the federal suit must have been filed after the
state-court judgment or decree was rendered. See Lance,
546 U.S. at 460; Great W. Mining, 615 F.3d at 166. This
Circuit, like others, has required an “effectively final” state-
court judgment to precede the federal suit. Malhan v. Sec’y
U.S. Dep’t of State, 938 F.3d 453, 459 (3d Cir. 2019); see
generally RLR Invs., LLC v. City of Pigeon Forge, 4 F.4th 380,
400–01 (6th Cir. 2021) (Clay, J., dissenting) (collecting cases
from other circuits adopting the same approach).8 And at the
time of this suit, the state-court judgment in the in rem action
had become effectively final because the time to appeal in state
court had expired. See Malhan, 938 F.3d at 459. Merritts had
until March 28, 2018, to appeal the order of the
Commonwealth Court to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and
259 (1978) (explaining that remedies for violations of
constitutional rights “should be tailored to the interests
protected by the particular right in question” and allowing only
nominal damages), remain for the parties to address in the first
instance in District Court.
8
The ‘effectively final’ standard functions as a waive-or-
exhaust rule for federal claims in state courts, such that a state-
court judgment becomes effectively final in three scenarios:
(i) the highest state court has issued a terminal ruling, see
Malhan, 938 F.3d at 459; (ii) a lower state court has issued a
ruling for which the time to appeal has expired, or the parties
have voluntarily terminated the case, see id.; or (iii) all
questions of federal law have been resolved by the highest state
court, notwithstanding any surviving state law or factual
issues, see id. at 459–60; see also Cox Broad. Corp. v. Cohn,
420 U.S. 469, 477–83 (1975) (treating as final for purposes of
§ 1257 four categories of cases “in which the highest court of
a State has finally determined the federal issue present in a
particular case, but in which there are further proceedings in
the lower state courts to come”).
18
he missed that deadline. See In re Condemnation by Dep’t of
Transportation, of Right-Of-Way for State Route 0022, Section
034 in Twp. of Frankstown v. Commonwealth, 194 A.3d 722,
737 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2018) (order issued Feb. 26, 2018); Pa.
R. App. P. 1113(a) (providing 30 days to appeal a
Commonwealth Court judgment). Months after the expiration
of that appeal period, on October 22, 2018, he commenced this
federal action. At that time, the state-court judgment was
effectively final.9 See Malhan, 938 F.3d at 459.
3. The Invitation to Review and Reject a
State-Court Judgment
Dismissal under Rooker-Feldman also requires that the
claim invite review and rejection of a state-court ruling.
See Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284; In re Phila. Ent. & Dev.
Partners, 879 F.3d 492, 503 (3d Cir. 2018). This condition is
satisfied for claims that seek “to determine whether [the state
court] reached its result in accordance with law,” Great W.
Mining, 615 F.3d at 169 (quoting Bolden v. City of Topeka,
441 F.3d 1129, 1143 (10th Cir. 2006)), or “to have the state-
court decisions undone or declared null and void,” Geness v.
Cox, 902 F.3d 344, 360 (3d Cir. 2018) (quoting Great W.
Mining, 615 F.3d at 173). See Rooker, 263 U.S. at 416
(holding that a federal district court did not have jurisdiction to
adjudicate a constitutional challenge to a state-court judgment
because to declare the state-court order void would require “an
exercise of appellate jurisdiction,” and district courts possess
“strictly original” jurisdiction).
9
This conclusion is not altered by the later out-of-time petition
that Merritts made to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on
October 17, 2019. Although the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
allows nunc pro tunc petitions in limited circumstances,
see Pa. R. App. P. 1113(d), the possibility of such a filing does
not change the effective finality of the Commonwealth Court’s
order. See Malhan, 938 F.3d at 459.
19
Merritts’s § 1983 claims premised on allegations that
PennDOT unlawfully acquired the easements satisfy this
condition because they seek review and rejection of the
judgment in the condemnation proceeding. Each of those
claims – for an unlawful taking, an illegal seizure, and
deprivation of property without substantive or procedural due
process – depends on PennDOT lacking title to and possession
of the easements. For example, if PennDOT had those
property interests, it could not take them unlawfully. Likewise,
it could not illegally seize a property interest that it already
possessed. Nor could PennDOT deprive Merritts of a property
interest that he did not own without due process. But contrary
to the premise of those claims, PennDOT legally acquired the
easements through the condemnation proceeding. Thus, for
any of those claims to succeed, the District Court would have
to review and reject the legality of the judgment in the
condemnation proceeding.
4. Legal Injuries Caused by the State-
Court Judgment
The final condition for Rooker-Feldman dismissal is that a
federal plaintiff must complain of a legal injury caused by the
state-court ruling. See Exxon Mobil, 544 U.S. at 284; Great W.
Mining, 615 F.3d at 166. And for Merritts’s unlawful-
acquisition claims under § 1983, the source of his legal injury
is the judgment in the condemnation proceedings. As a result
of that ruling, PennDOT acquired title to and possession of the
two easements. Accordingly, a judicial ruling, not a prior
independent action by PennDOT or its officials, caused
Merritts’s legal injuries related to the acquisition of the
easements. Thus, this condition, like the three before it, is
satisfied for Merritts’s unlawful-acquisition claims, and they
should have been jurisdictionally dismissed without prejudice.
See Sinochem, 549 U.S. at 433.
20
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the District
Court’s judgment, and we will remand to the District Court
with instructions to adjudicate the just-compensation-related
§ 1983 claims for damages against the PennDOT officials in
their individual capacities and to dismiss all other claims
without prejudice.
21