Brian Elonzo Ward v. State of Indiana

United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
Chicago, Illinois 60604
Submitted February 22, 2023*
Decided March 6, 2023
Before
DIANE S. SYKES, Chief Judge
DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge
JOHN Z. LEE, Circuit Judge
No. 22-2535
BRIAN ELONZO WARD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
STATE OF INDIANA, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District
Court for the Southern District of Indiana,
Indianapolis Division.
No. 1:22-cv-00226-TWP-MG
Tanya Walton Pratt,
Chief Judge.
O R D E R
Brian Ward sued Indiana state officials and agencies after he lost a paternity case
in Indiana court. Ward asserts that the defendants violated his federal rights during the
state case, leading to an adverse award of child support. The district judge dismissed
* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and
the record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would
not significantly aid the court. FED. R. A PP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).
NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION
To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. A PP. P. 32.1

-- 1 of 4 --

No. 22-2535 Page 2
his suit with prejudice under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, which deprives district courts
of jurisdiction to review injuries caused by state-court judgments. The doctrine indeed
required dismissal; we thus affirm but modify the judgment to be without prejudice—
although we recognize there is very little practical difference.
Ward’s allegations arise out of events starting in 2013, when state officials
initiated a paternity case against him on behalf of the mother of a minor. At the time,
Ward alleges, he was on active duty in the military and unaware of the case. He asserts
that the officials wrongly told the state judge that he had been served and was not on
active duty. The judge entered judgment against Ward for failure to appear and
subpoenaed him to complete a test for paternity. Ward says that he found out about the
paternity case when he received the subpoena. Ward also alleges that, separately,
county officials defamed him to his military superiors throughout the proceedings.
Upon discovering the judgment for failure to appear, Ward moved to dismiss the
paternity case. He argued that the state officials’ actions violated his constitutional
rights and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3901, which grants members
of the military certain protections in civil cases, including empowering courts to stay
cases against active-duty servicemembers. The state judge vacated the judgment for
failure to appear but later entered judgment on the merits, ruling that Ward was the
father of the child and had to pay weekly child support. After the entry of judgment,
Ward moved to terminate the order for child support, repeating his arguments that the
state officials violated federal law. The state court never ruled on his motion, and Ward
never completed an appeal seeking relief in the state’s appellate court.
Eight years later, Ward filed his current federal suit. He asserted that the
defendants obtained the child-support order in state court without verifying his
military status or serving him, thereby violating his due process rights, seeking relief
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Civil Relief Act. Objecting to losses caused by the
judgment, he sought to enjoin the wage garnishment and tax liens resulting from it and
requested the return of money “solely from funds garnished, levied or confiscated bank
accounts, retirement accounts, IRS tax refunds seized, attorney fees,” and related
sources. The judge granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint on the
pleadings, see FED. R. C IV. P. 12(c), for lack of jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine. She reasoned that Ward’s claims either required the court to overturn the
paternity judgment or were inextricably intertwined with it.
On appeal, Ward argues that Rooker-Feldman does not bar federal suits like his
that allege state actors violated federal law in state court to obtain an adverse judgment.

-- 2 of 4 --

No. 22-2535 Page 3
He repeats that the defendants violated his due process rights and the Civil Relief Act
by misstating his military status and that he had been served, leading to what he calls
an erroneous child-support order. And he again requests that the order “be made void.”
Ward also asserts—for the first time—that he appealed in state court but withdrew the
appeal because the defendants threatened to hold him in contempt for appealing.
We review the dismissal de novo. Kelley v. Med-1 Sols., LLC, 548 F.3d 600, 603–04
(7th Cir. 2008). Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, only the Supreme Court may review
state-court judgments. 28 U.S.C. § 1257; Rooker v. Fidelity Trust. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923);
District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The doctrine
deprives federal district courts of jurisdiction to hear “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. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005).
The district judge correctly ruled that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine blocks Ward’s
suit. He asks expressly that the federal court declare the state-court order is void. That
request falls squarely within Rooker itself. Even if he modified his request for relief,
Ward alleges injuries that arose from the state court’s judgment. Ward tells us that
misstatements to the state judge—that he had been served with process and was not on
active duty—harmed him by producing an incorrect, adverse judgment. But precisely
because his alleged losses were caused by the state court’s allegedly erroneous
judgment, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine blocks this case even if the misstatements
violated federal law and even if (as he argues) they deprived the state court of
jurisdiction. See Kelley, 548 F.3d at 605 (Rooker-Feldman deprives district court of
jurisdiction to assess the legality of statements made to a state judge that resulted in an
adverse judgment, because doing so requires the district court to review the state
court’s judgment); accord, Bauer v. Koester, 951 F.3d 863, 866 (7th Cir. 2020) (Rooker-
Feldman barred claims for alleged collusion to introduce false evidence in state court);
Swartz v. Heartland Equine Rescue, 940 F.3d 387, 391 (7th Cir. 2019) (same).
We have considered three possible objections to this conclusion. First, some
violations of federal law can cause a loss independent of a suit’s outcome, and litigation
over such violations may not run afoul of Rooker-Feldman. For example, if a federal law
limits litigation to a specific time or place, its violation “inflicts an injury measured by
the costs of traveling or sending a lawyer” to the improper venue. Harold v. Steel,
773 F.3d 884, 886–87 (7th Cir. 2014). We may assume (without deciding) that the Civil
Relief Act is such a law and that the defendants might have violated it by causing the

-- 3 of 4 --

No. 22-2535 Page 4
paternity suit to proceed sooner rather than later. But Ward does not allege that any of
his losses reflect costs of defending the state case earlier than the Act might permit.
Rather, Ward ties his alleged losses and requested relief to the outcome of the state case:
he seeks expressly to “void” the garnishment and liens rooted in the judgment and
wants damages resulting “solely” from those orders. Thus, his injury is not independent
of the state judgment, and Rooker-Feldman blocks relief. Id.
Second, we are mindful that in his complaint Ward alleged that, separate from
the state-court litigation, some defendants defamed him to his military superiors. But
Ward does not revive (or elaborate on) this assertion in his appeal, instead focusing his
attack only on the state-court judgment. Any argument that the district court has
jurisdiction to hear his defamation allegations is waived. Miller v. Chicago Transit Auth.,
20 F.4th 1148, 1155 (7th Cir. 2021). And even if Ward had made such an argument on
appeal, it would still fail. Because Rooker-Feldman blocks his federal claims, he would
still need an independent jurisdictional basis for a state-law defamation claim, see Rivera
v. Allstate Ins. Co., 913 F.3d 603, 617–18 (7th Cir. 2018), and he offers none.
Third, Ward attempts to circumvent the Rooker-Feldman doctrine by arguing that
defendants prevented him from appealing his adverse state-court judgment. Ward
waived this argument by not raising it in the district court. See Reed v. Brex, Inc., 8 F.4th
569, 578 (7th Cir. 2021). In any case, this argument would not save his claims. A federal
plaintiff’s argument that Rooker-Feldman does not apply because of the lack of an
opportunity to litigate in state court requires that the plaintiff point to an obstacle
independent of the defendants’ actions. Jakupovic v. Curran, 850 F.3d 898, 904 (7th Cir.
2017). Ward does not identify any such obstacle.
We thus AFFIRM the dismissal, but because cases dismissed for lack of
jurisdiction should be dismissed without prejudice, Jakupovic, 850 F.3d at 904, we
MODIFY the dismissal to be without prejudice.

-- 4 of 4 --