Opinion
22-3047
01-04-2024
KELLY McGOFFNEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MATTHEW KINCAID and VIGO COUNTY PROBATE COURT, Defendants-Appellees.
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
Submitted January 4, 2024
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division. No. 2:21-cv-00478-JRS-DLP James R. Sweeney II, Judge.
Before ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judge AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
ORDER
Kelly McGoffney sued Judge Matthew Kincaid and the probate Division of the Vigo County Superior Court after the judge removed her as personal representative to her mother's estate and closed the estate. The district court dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We affirm.
Following her mother's death in 2012, McGoffney became the personal representative of the estate, and she then spent five years pursuing multiple medical malpractice and wrongful death suits. The estate did not recover anything. But McGoffney believed that the estate should remain open to receive millions of dollars from bankruptcy and Social Security claims, civil lawsuits, and potential income from the mass production of one of her grandmother's famous recipes. After an intervenor filed a motion to show cause why McGoffney, who is not an attorney, should not be removed as personal representative, Judge Kincaid ordered McGoffney to hire an attorney to represent the estate and warned that not doing so would result in both her removal as personal representative and closure of the estate. McGoffney did not hire an attorney, and the judge followed through on his warning.
McGoffney attempted to persuade the state court to reopen the estate. When Judge Kincaid denied her petitions, McGoffney unsuccessfully appealed, and the Supreme Court of Indiana denied her request to consider the case. She then returned to the probate court to file an "emergency petition" to reopen the estate and to disqualify the judge for bias, but Judge Kincaid struck the petition as redundant. See IND. R. TRIAL P. 12(F). The appellate court affirmed.
McGoffney then sued Judge Kincaid and the probate court (perhaps as the judge's employer, though the reason is not clear) in federal court. She alleged that by removing her as personal representative, closing the estate, and denying her repeated requests to reopen the estate, the judge violated her rights under the federal Constitution, see 28 U.S.C. § 1983, and the "Open Courts" clause of the Indiana Constitution, see IND. CONST. art. I, § 12. She asked the district court to reopen the estate, restore her as personal representative, and effect a change of judge.
The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, see Rooker v. Fidelity Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The district court granted that motion; it explained that McGoffney's effort to use civil rights claims to void decisions of the probate court was a "blatant attempt at an appeal" of a state judgment.
On appeal, McGoffney argues that the district court failed to account for her constitutional arguments when it said that she was attempting to appeal the state court's rulings. We review the jurisdictional dismissal de novo. Sykes v. Cook Cnty. Cir. Ct. Prob. Div., 837 F.3d 736, 739 (7th Cir. 2016).
The district court was correct. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine deprives the lower federal courts of jurisdiction when someone who lost in state court sues in federal court, seeking, directly or indirectly, to overturn the state court's judgment. Exxon Mobile Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). Here, the injuries McGoffney complains of-being required to obtain a lawyer, her removal as personal representative, the premature closure of the estate, and the denial of her petitions to reopen-resulted directly from the probate court's decisions. See Mains v. Citibank, 852 F.3d 669, 675 (7th Cir. 2017). Moreover, she expressly seeks reopening of the estate- relief that would be "tantamount to vacating the state judgment." Id.
Although McGoffney correctly asserts that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not apply when a plaintiff challenges independently unlawful conduct, see id. at 675, she does not raise that type of challenge. She points to nothing other than judicial rulings as the wrongs against her. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine blocks such challenges, even if they are constitutional in nature. See Hadzi-Tanovic v. Johnson, 62 F.4th 394, 401 (7th Cir. 2023). And, to the extent that McGoffney implies that the state judgment was the product of bias or corruption, such allegations do not shield her lawsuit from the application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See id. at 404-06.
Finally, even if the Rooker Feldman doctrine did not apply across the board to McGoffney's claims (and we think it does), the probate exception would deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction. The probate exception to federal jurisdiction "reserves to state probate courts the probate or annulment of a will and the administration of a decedent's estate." Marshall v. Marshall, 547 U.S. 293, 311 (2006). McGoffney's claims all pertain to how the probate court administered her mother's estate. See Owsley v. Gorbett, 960 F.3d 969, 971 (7th Cir. 2020) ("[T]he state court's decision to retain Lisa as the estate's representative is not subject to collateral attack." (citing Marshall, 547 U.S. at 305-12)). The federal courts, therefore, cannot adjudicate them.
AFFIRMED.
We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. p. 34(a)(2)(C).