By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//October 7, 2014//
By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//October 7, 2014//
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit
Civil
Civil Procedure – Jurisdiction — Rooker-Feldman doctrine
A federal district court has no authority to interfere with a state court’s interpretation of its worker’s compensation laws.
“The Supreme Court of the United States is the only federal court with appellate authority over state courts; that is the 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). But even the Supreme Court would have had no authority over the Indiana courts in Lodholtz v. Pulliam because no issue of federal law was involved in that litigation. Granite State has struck out. The jurisdictional issue on which its federal suit is based was resolved against it by the Indiana courts, and there is no ground for a collateral attack by another judicial system on that determination.”
Reversed.
Petition for Permission to Appeal from the Northern District of Indiana, Lozano, J., Posner, J.