Peter Kleidman v. Thomas L. Willhite, Jr., Associate Justice, Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, et al.

Petitioner Kleidman requests that this petition be liberally construed. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 US 89, 94 (2007). This petition pertains to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, named after Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 US 413 (1923) (Rooker)1 and DC Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 US 462 (1983). The gist of RookerFeldman is that one cannot appeal a state-court decision by way of an original action in federal district court. The Courts of Appeals have cited Rooker-Feldman thousands of times, and yet there is currently substantial disarray, including interand intra-Circuit conflict on numerous aspects of Rooker-Feldman, along with disagreements among circuit judges as expressed in numerous dissenting and/or concurring opinions. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 US 280 (2005) made two rulings that will be used in these Questions. First, Rooker-Feldman ... is confined to cases ... brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments.... Id., 284. Second, in a federal-question action (such as here), “Rooker-Feldman ... merely recognizes that 28 USC § 1331 is a grant of original jurisdiction, ... not ... appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments.” Exxon, 292. 1 This method of abbreviating cases (e.g., “RookeC) is used throughout without further mention.