Walter WELLS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF CHICAGO and Daniel Fernandez, Defendants-Appellees, 188 F. App'x 509

Order Workers for the City of Chicago removed personal property from a trash-filled residential lot; 16 months later the City demolished the house on the property. Walter Wells contends in this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that the City and one of its lawyers must compensate him for these events. The district court held, however, that it lacks jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because a state court had authorized the City’s acts after ruling that Wells had not established an ownership interest in the real estate and chattels. See District of Columbia Court of Appeals v.

Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923). The district court should not have invoked the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, because the state court did not command the City to remove the property and demolish the house. It gave permission; whether to act on that permission was the City’s decision, and it is possible to review that decision without setting aside the judgment. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 293, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005).

This is why it is possible to use § 1983 to seek damages for searches conducted under purportedly defective warrants. Here we have authorization to demolish a house rather than search it, but the principle is the same. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is not a federal (and jurisdictional) version of res judicata. See Lance v. Dennis, — U.S. -, 126 S.Ct. 1198, 163 L.Ed.2d 1059 (2006). State-law doctrines of preclusion are what matter. Wells litigated and lost his claim to be owner of the parcel and its contents.

That decision is binding under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, for Illinois would not permit Wells to relitigate the issue. This is what distinguishes the warrant situation: Wells was a party to the state litigation, while warrants issue ex parte. Wells could have had review on appeal in state court but abandoned that process. It is now too late for further review. Because it is established (via the preclusive effect of the state decision) that none of Wells’s property was affected by the removal and demolition, there is no basis for relief under § 1983.

Moreover, the state proceeding furnished all the process that was Wells’s due on the question whether such an interest existed. His contention that the state court erred is no reason to disregard its decision. The judgment of the district court is modified to reflect that the decision in defendants’ favor is on the merits, rather than for lack of federal jurisdiction, and as so modified is affirmed.