T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System

In T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System, the Institute for Justice submitted an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to abrogate the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which lower courts too often deploy erroneously to dismiss meritorious civil-rights lawsuits just because they have some connection to prior state court litigation.

IJ’s brief provides examples of IJ cases where this has happened, delaying justice for victims of serious constitutional violations. The brief also musters empirical evidence to show those are just examples of a wider and growing problem nationwide, despite the Supreme Court’s efforts to narrow the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. And the brief provides the solution: The Court should finally abrogate the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. It has no basis in statute, and all the legitimate concerns about duplicative litigation are already better addressed by well-defined doctrines such as claim and issue preclusion.