DILLON v. INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SERVICES (2021)

ORDER

After a state court garnished his wages for child support, Leo Dillon sued the Indiana Department of Child Services and Matthew Keppler, the deputy prosecutor of Vanderburgh County, for obtaining adverse state-court orders. Because the district court correctly dismissed Dillon's complaint as barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we affirm.

Dillon sued the defendants in federal court to contest the validity of state-court orders about paternity and child support. Among other things, Dillon challenged state-court orders that garnished his wages and held him in contempt for disregarding the court's orders. The district court dismissed Dillon's complaint as unintelligible but permitted him to amend. The court then dismissed without prejudice his amended complaint, which asked the court to “set aside” all state-court orders against him, because it concluded that Dillon's claims were barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and therefore outside of federal subject-matter jurisdiction. See Rooker v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923); D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983).

Dillon's appeal is unavailing. The district court never entered a judgment in accordance with Rule 58, but Dillon timely appealed within 150 days of the entry of its dismissal order. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 58(a), Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7)(A)(ii). His appellate brief is defective because it merely annotates a partial timeline of the state-court paternity and child-support proceedings against him. Even liberally construed, the brief contains no “cogent arguments,” so we could dismiss the appeal on that basis. See Parker v. Four Seasons Hotels, Ltd., 845 F.3d 807, 811 (7th Cir. 2017); see also Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8). Nonetheless, mindful of Dillon's pro se status, we explain why the district court properly dismissed his case.

The district court correctly dismissed Dillon's complaint under Rooker-Feldman because his suit is based on the claim that state-court judgments had injured him. See Bauer v. Koester, 951 F.3d 863, 866 (7th Cir. 2020). The doctrine bars “state court losers” from complaining to federal district and appellate courts that state-court judgments violated their federal rights. E.A. v. Gardner, 929 F.3d 922, 924 (7th Cir. 2019). Because Rooker-Feldman is a jurisdictional bar, it precludes consideration of the merits of Dillon's complaint. Lennon v. City of Carmel, 865 F.3d 503, 506 (7th Cir. 2017). The bar applies both to the state court's substantive rulings (garnishing Dillon's wages), and its procedural rulings (holding him in contempt). Sykes v. Cook Cnty. Circuit Court Prob. Div., 837 F 3d 736, 742 (7th Cir. 2016).

Dillon unpersuasively attempts to overcome Rooker-Feldman’s bar by suggesting that serious constitutional violations produced the state court's adverse judgments. But “[t]here is no exception for egregious error”; Dillon's federal remedy was to seek review in the United States Supreme Court. Lennon, 865 F.3d at 506. And because Dillon had no state appeal pending when he filed his federal suit, the bar applies to his case. See Parker v. Lyons, 757 F.3d 701, 705–06 (7th Cir. 2014) (doctrine does not apply if a state-court appeal is pending); Harold v. Steel, 773 F.3d 884, 885–86 (7th Cir. 2014) (Rooker-Feldman applies to all unappealed state-court judgments, not just state high-court judgments).

Other insuperable obstacles also block this suit. The only conceivable statutory basis for the suit is 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and it does not apply to a state agency like the Indiana Department of Child Services, which is not a “person” under § 1983. See Will v. Mich. Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 65–66, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989). Also, as a public prosecutor sued for acting within the scope of his duties, Keppler enjoys absolute immunity from suit. Tobey v. Chibucos, 890 F.3d 634, 650 (7th Cir. 2018).

AFFIRMED