T. M. v. University of Md. Medical System Corporation · ¶39

T. M. and the dissent’s rule also would produce arbitrarily different results depending on when, exactly, a federal suit seeking review of a state-court judgment is filed. In their view, a district court can review a state-court judgment so long as it has not been affirmed by the state high court by the time the federal action is filed. Yet a state high court may well affirm such a judgment while such a federal action is still pending. In that event, the plaintiff would be in the exact same situation Rooker disapproved: seeking to have declared null and void “a judgment of a [state court], which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State.” 263 U. S., at 414. Yet, under T. M. and the dissent’s rule, a district court would have jurisdiction to proceed simply because the plaintiff filed her federal suit while the state appellate proceedings were pending, rather than waiting for the…

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