David R. Johnson v. State of Illinois

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted December 21, 2022*
Decided December 22, 2022
Before
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge
MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge
AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge
No. 21-2896
DAVID R. JOHNSON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
STATE OF ILLINOIS,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Northern District of Illinois,
Eastern Division.
No. 1:20-cv-05862
Franklin U. Valderrama,
Judge.
O R D E R
David Johnson appeals the dismissal of his civil-rights suit in which he alleged
due-process violations in various state proceedings related to an allegedly wrongful
traffic stop. The district court dismissed the case with prejudice, determining that the
state was immune under the Eleventh Amendment and that the court lacked
* 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. F ED. R. A PP . P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with F ED. R. APP . P. 32.1

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jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine to disturb state-court judgments. Rooker
v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923); D.C. Ct. of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). We
affirm the judgment, though we modify it to reflect that the claim barred by Rooker-
Feldman must be dismissed without prejudice.
We draw the following facts from Johnson’s complaint, which includes
attachments from underlying state proceedings. See F ED. R. C IV. P. 10(c); Barwin v. Vill. of
Oak Park, 54 F.4th 443, 453 (7th Cir. 2022). In 2010, Johnson filed two complaints in the
Illinois Court of Claims. In the first, he sued state and local officials for damages related
to an allegedly wrongful traffic stop in which he was arrested and had his driver’s
license summarily suspended. When the officials did not timely answer, Johnson
moved for a default judgment. Soon after, Johnson filed his second Court of Claims
complaint, this time against the State of Illinois, seeking a default judgment as a
sanction for the officials’ failure in the prior proceeding to answer his complaint. The
Court of Claims dismissed both complaints for failure to state a claim.
Johnson then sought review of the dismissal orders by petitioning an Illinois trial
court for a common-law writ of certiorari. He alleged that the Court of Claims was
biased against him and had improperly denied him a default judgment based on the
officials’ untimely answer. The state trial court dismissed his petitions for failure to state
a claim. The state appellate court upheld the dismissal of the petitions and, as relevant
here, concluded that Johnson did not sufficiently allege a due-process claim to challenge
the adequacy of the Court of Claims proceedings. Johnson’s subsequent petition for
leave to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court was denied. See Johnson v. Ill. Ct. of Claims,
108 N.E.3d 874 (Ill. 2018).
Johnson then turned to federal court and sued the State of Illinois for damages
resulting from (1) due-process violations in the Court of Claims proceedings, (2) due-
process violations in the state-court proceedings, and (3) the dismissal of his wrongful-
traffic-stop claim in the Court of Claims. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983, 1985, 1986.
The district court dismissed the case with prejudice. The court determined that
the Eleventh Amendment barred Johnson’s claims, and that no exception allowing suits
against a state was present here. In the alternative, the court concluded that it lacked
subject-matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because Johnson’s claims
arose from state cases in which state courts had rendered a final judgment.

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No. 21-2896 Page 3
On appeal, Johnson does not engage the district court’s Rooker-Feldman analysis
and instead continues to challenge the manner in which the Court of Claims and the
state courts addressed his claims.
We begin with the threshold matter of jurisdiction. See Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi
Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 283 (2005). Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the lower
federal courts may not adjudicate cases “brought by state-court losers complaining of
injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings
commenced.” Id. at 284; see Bauer v. Koester, 951 F.3d 863, 866 (7th Cir. 2020). To the
extent Johnson raises a due-process challenge to the Court of Claims proceedings, this
claim is barred by Rooker-Feldman because he would have us review issues already
decided by the state courts.
But Rooker-Feldman does not bar federal courts from reviewing Johnson’s due-
process claim with regard to the Illinois circuit court, appellate court, and Supreme
Court proceedings. Johnson does more than generally challenge the state-court
decisions; he asserts that the process by which the state courts reached their decisions
was tainted because the state court conspired against him with other government
actors. With this claim, Johnson seeks redress for an injury independent of the one
caused (allegedly) by the state-court determination on his grievances with the Court of
Claims, and thus the claim is not barred by Rooker-Feldman. See Nesses v. Shepard, 68 F.3d
1003, 1005 (7th Cir. 1995) (Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not bar plaintiff’s claim “that
people involved in the [state-court] decision violated some independent right of his,
such as the right (if it is a right) to be judged by a tribunal that is uncontaminated by
politics”); see also Johnson v. Orr, 551 F.3d 564, 570 (7th Cir. 2008).
To the extent Johnson challenges the merits determination of the Court of
Claims, Rooker-Feldman does not apply because that tribunal is a legislative rather than
adjudicative body of the state. See 705 ILCS 505/8(a); People v. Philip Morris, Inc.,
759 N.E.2d 906, 912 (Ill. 2001); Gilbert v. Ill. State Bd. of Educ., 591 F.3d 896, 900 (7th Cir.
2010). Although the state trial court acts as a court of review with respect to certiorari
actions alleging due-process violations, the Illinois Court of Claims Act provides no
method of review over the merits of Court of Claims decisions. Reichert v. Ct. of Claims,
786 N.E.2d 174, 177 (Ill. 2003).
The district court rightly dismissed these claims, though in doing so it need not
have discussed the Eleventh Amendment. Those claims, which Johnson brought against
the State, are not permitted under § 1983, § 1985, or § 1986 because a state is not a

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No. 21-2896 Page 4
“person” under those statutes. See Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71 (1989)
(§ 1983); Ennin v. CNH Indus. Am., LLC, 878 F.3d 590, 597 (7th Cir. 2017) (§ 1985 and
§ 1986 claims are derivative of underlying claims). Courts should resolve § 1983 claims
against states on statutory, not constitutional grounds. Vt. Agency of Nat. Res. v. U.S. ex
rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 779 (2000); Holton v. Ind. Horse Racing Comm'n, 398 F.3d 928,
929 (7th Cir. 2005).
Lastly, a word about the disposition. Insofar as Rooker-Feldman deprived the
district court of jurisdiction over Johnson’s due-process challenge to the Court of Claims
proceedings, that dismissal should be “without prejudice on the merits, which are open
to review in state court to the extent the state’s law of preclusion permits.” Frederiksen v.
City of Lockport, 384 F.3d 437, 438 (7th Cir. 2004); see also Jakupovic v. Curran, 850 F.3d 898,
904 (7th Cir. 2017). Johnson’s remaining statutory claims were properly dismissed with
prejudice.
We thus AFFIRM the judgment of the district court as modified.

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