Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co.

Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co.
Supreme Court of the United States
Submitted November 26, 1923 Decided December 10, 1923
Full case name	William Velpeau Rooker, et al. v. Fidelity Trust Company, et al.
Citations	263 U.S. 413 (more) 44 S. Ct. 149; 68 L. Ed. 362; 1923 U.S. LEXIS 2824
Case history
Prior	Appeal from the District Court of the U.S. for the District of Indiana
Subsequent	None
Holding
Congress has not given the lower federal courts appellate jurisdiction over judgments rendered by the courts of the states.
Court membership
Chief Justice William H. Taft Associate Justices Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. Willis Van Devanter · James C. McReynolds Louis Brandeis · George Sutherland Pierce Butler · Edward T. Sanford
Case opinion
Majority	Van Devanter, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
§ 238 of the Judicial Code

Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court enunciated a rule of civil procedure that would eventually become known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine (also named for the later case of District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The doctrine holds that lower United States federal courts may not sit in direct review of state court decisions.^[1]