T. M. v. University of Md. Medical System Corporation · ¶37

The fact that T. M. and the dissent’s rule departs from this Court’s precedents is enough to affirm the dismissal of T. M.’s suit under Rooker-Feldman. If more is necessary, however, the Court also declines to distort the Rooker-Field man doctrine in service of a rule that would create anomalous outcomes and undermine the federalism principles upon which the doctrine rests. The upshot of T. M. and the dissent’s rule would be that federal district courts could not exercise jurisdiction if a plaintiff seeks review of a state high-court judgment, but they could exercise jurisdiction if the plaintiff seeks the same review of a state lower-court judgment while that judgment is on appeal in the state- court system. That makes little sense.

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