LESTER M. WARREN, Executor of the Estate of Barbara J. Warren v. Esq. LAURALEE B. BAKER

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 07-4265
LESTER M. WARREN, Executor of the Estate of Barbara J. Warren;
LESTER M. WARREN, in his own right,
Appellant
v.
Esq. LAURALEE B. BAKER; Esq. SHAUN J. MUMFORD;
MARGOLIS EDELSTEIN; MARK E. FOLK, D.O.;
Esq. MICHAEL C. MONGIELLO; FOULKROD ELLIS;
ALICE ROACH, M.D.; MARIANNE WEBSTER, M.D.;
Hon. BRUCE F. BRATTON, in his official capacity and/or his individual capacity;
Esq. GRANT H. FLEMING; Esq. JONATHAN B. STEPANIAN;
Esq. JAMES M. HORNE; McQUAIDE, BLASKO, SCHWARTZ,
FLEMIN & GAULKNER, INC.; STEPHEN H. MILLER, M.D.;
HERSHEY MEDICAL CENTER/UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL;
Hon. JOSEPH A. HUDOCK, in his official capacity and/or his individual capacity;
Hon. MARY JANE BOWES, in her official capacity and/or her individual capacity;
Hon. PHYLLIS W. BECK, in her official capacity and/or her individual capacity;
Esq. WILLIAM J. SCHMIDT; Esq. ROBERT D. SHAPIRO;
Esq. ALAN J. CHARKEY; WHITE & WILLIAMS LLP;
Esq. LOUIS E. BRICKLIN; BENNET, BRICKLIN & SALTZBURG, LLP;
PENNSYLVANIA FARM BUREAU; Esq. MARK J. OBERSTAEDT;
Esq. CHRISTOPHER P. DOLOTOSKY; Esq. JOHN P. KAHN;
ARCHER & GREINER; KEYSTONE HEALTH PLAN CENTRAL;
CAPITAL BLUE CROSS; HIGHMARK BLUE SHIELD;
BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD ASSOCIATION
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
D.C. Civil Action No. 07-cv-00188
(Honorable John E. Jones III)

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Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
April 20, 2009
Before: SCIRICA, Chief Judge, SLOVITER and FISHER, Circuit Judges.
Filed: August 28, 2009
OPINION OF THE COURT
SCIRICA, Chief Judge.
Lester M. Warren appeals the dismissal of his federal civil rights complaint against
thirty-three defendants. This action, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, arose from the
dismissal of Warren’s state-court medical malpractice and wrongful death suit against
eighteen of the present defendants. In his federal complaint, Warren alleges several
conspiracies that arose in the handling of his state-court action in the Court of Common
Please of Dauphin County and the Pennsylvania Superior Court. In addition to the
defendants from the state-court proceeding, Warren added as defendants in his federal
complaint all of the state court defendants’ lawyers and the county and state judges who
presided over his earlier litigation. By four separate orders, granting five motions to
dismiss, the District Court dismissed Warren’s complaint against all thirty-three of the
defendants. The District Court found it did not have subject matter jurisdiction under the

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“The District Court held that it lacked jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman1
doctrine. We exercise plenary review over the decision to grant the motion to dismiss for
lack of subject matter jurisdiction.” Marran v. Marran. 376 F.3d 143, 149 (3d Cir. 2004).
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Rooker-Feldman doctrine because the claim required the court to review a state court
judgment. We will affirm.1
As we write primarily for the parties, we need not set forth in detail the complex
procedural and factual background of this case. In sum, the Pennsylvania Superior Court
entered a judgment of non pros against Warren for failure to file appropriate Certificates
of Merit, as required under Pennsylvania law for medial malpractice actions. Warren
subsequently filed this action alleging “a vast conspiracy existed between the Defendant
Judges, Defendant doctors and Defendant legal practitioners to deprive him of his
constitutional and statutory rights.” A-434b. Furthermore, he alleges that all defendants
violated the Pennsylvania Constitution in ways that amount to negligence and gross
negligence.
Warren’s appellate brief does not raise any colorable claims. It alleges Warren
was “deprived of his federally protected and Pennsylvania Constitution protected right to
appeal, which was rendered a nullity by the state court’s striking certain Defendants from
the caption of the wrongful death case, and of his federally and state protected property
rights, including damages in the wrongful death case, by the vexatious and biased acts, in
violation of settled law, of Defendants to needlessly and deliberately increase the cost of
litigation, and to violate the Plaintiff’s right to due process and equal protection of the

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law.” Appellant Br. 3. This allegation is repeated verbatim throughout Warren’s brief
unsupported by any factual allegations. The rest of the brief is comprised of short
paragraphs which read like parentheticals, describing cases and statutes, but not actually
connecting such material to the facts of the appeal before us. Warren repeatedly mentions
a conspiracy to deprive him of his constitutional and statutory rights, but without any
factual details.
The District Court held it did not have subject matter jurisdiction because the
“Rooker-Feldman doctrine operates as a bar to Plaintiff’s claims in this action.” A-437b.
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine prohibits federal courts from exercising jurisdiction over a
claim which is functionally an equivalent of an appeal from a state court judgment. See
Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); District of Columbia Court of Appeals
v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). “Rooker-Feldman applies only when in order to grant
the federal plaintiff the relief sought, the federal court must determine that the state court
judgment was erroneously entered or must take action that would render that judgment
ineffectual.” FOCUS v. Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, 75 F.3d 834, 840 (3d
Cir. 1996).
The United States Supreme Court has narrowed the applicability of the Rooker-
Feldman doctrine to cases “brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused
by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and
inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v.

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Saudi Basic Industries, 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). As the District Court found, Warren’s
complaint fits this description of cases barred by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Warren
lost in state court, he then complained of injuries caused by a state-court judgment
rendered before the district court proceedings and then sought relief to review and reject
the determinations made by the state courts.
If as Warren alleges, “the state-court decision was wrong,” Congress has
empowered the United States Supreme Court to exercise appellate authority to “reverse or
modify a state-court judgment.” Id. (internal quotation omitted). We will affirm the
judgment of the District Court.

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