Tyler v. Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, et al

Filing 10

Judge Douglas P. Woodlock: MEMORANDUM AND ORDER entered granting 7 Motion to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim (Woodlock, Douglas)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS

HEATHER TYLER

)
)
Plaintiff,
)
)
v.
)
)
SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF
)
MASSACHUSETTS, Hon. Ralph D. Gants,)
Hon. Elspeth B. Cypher, Hon.
)
Barbara A. Lenk, Hon. Scott L.
)
Kafker, Hon. Frank M. Gaziano, Hon.)
David A. Lowy, Hon. Kimberly S.
)
Budd, in their official capacities;)
and MAURA HEALY, Attorney General )
for the Commonwealth, in her
)
official capacity,
)
)
)
)
Defendants.1

CIVIL ACTION NO.
17-10272-DPW

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
February 20, 2018
Faced with an adverse ruling from the Supreme Judicial
Court of Massachusetts regarding a federal constitutional claim,
Plaintiff did not seek review in the Supreme Court of the United

1

The caption identifying the defendants is set forth as it
appears in Plaintiff’s complaint with some technical
corrections. In the time since Plaintiff filed her suit,
Justices Margot Botsford and Geraldine S. Hines, two of the
originally named defendants, retired from the bench. They were
succeeded respectively by Justices Elspeth B. Cypher and Scott
L. Kafker. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 17(d), I ORDER that
Justices Cypher and Kafker be substituted for Justices Botsford
and Hines and the caption above reflects that substitution.
Additionally, in the substituted caption, I have used the names
of the justices as set out on the SJC website.

States.

Rather, she filed this suit against the justices of the

Commonwealth’s highest court and the Attorney General of
Massachusetts in an “inferior”2 court of the federal judicial
system.
Plaintiff alleges that the state court decisions violate
her rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the
United States Constitution by forcing her to be involved over an
extended period of time in family court proceedings with Jamie
Melendez, a man who impregnated her when she was fourteen.
Melendez pled guilty to four counts of statutory rape arising
from the relationship.

Plaintiff requests that I declare the

Supreme Judicial Court’s decision unconstitutional and forbid
all courts in the Commonwealth from granting persons convicted
of rape parental rights over any children born as a result of
their criminal acts.

2

The term “inferior,” of course, is the adjective deployed by
the Founders in the judicial branch article of the United States
Constitution. U.S. CONST., art. III, § 1, to describe federal
courts subordinate to the Supreme Court. This eighteenth
century usage is plainly meant to denote hierarchy not quality.
In the context of this case, the usage serves to emphasize that
the American federal structure is supported by two largely
independent and parallel judicial systems. For both of these
systems, the last word on any issue of federal law is provided
by the Supreme Court of the United States, generally after
courts subordinate to it in either or both the federal and state
systems have ruled on such an issue. See generally U.S. CONST.
art. VI, § 1, cl.2 (“Judges in every State shall be bound” by
the “Constitution, and Laws of the United States . . . made . .
. under the Authority of the United States.”).
2

Well-established legal doctrine governing the respective
roles of the state and the federal judicial systems compels me
to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint.

The complaint cannot pass

over the threshold for addressing her claims in this court.

The

Rooker-Feldman doctrine3 prevents consideration because they
present a dispute brought by an unsuccessful litigant in the
state courts seeking to have a lower federal court review and
reject a state court judgment rendered before the federal
litigation commenced.4

See generally Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi

Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280 (2005).
I. BACKGROUND
I recite as background the facts as alleged in Plaintiff’s
complaint and in public judicial records of which I take note.
Plaintiff became pregnant in 2009 at age fourteen and gave birth
to her child in October 2010.

In 2011, Melendez pled guilty in

the Commonwealth’s Norfolk Superior Court to statutory rape of

3

The doctrine bears the name of two Supreme Court cases in which
it was developed, Rooker v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923)
and D.C. Ct. of App. v. Feldman, 406 U.S. 462 (1983). See
generally Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544
U.S. 280, 284-85 (2005) (tracing development of doctrine).
4 Other legal principles, which I don’t reach because the RookerFeldman doctrine fully bars jurisdiction in this court, would
also appear variously to prevent, impede, or deter pursuit of
Plaintiff’s claims in this court. For example, the doctrine of
Burford abstention counsels against resolving Plaintiff’s claims
because they implicate difficult questions of domestic relations
and criminal justice public policy which have been and will
continue to be addressed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
through its own courts and legislature.
3

the plaintiff and was sentenced to sixteen years of probation.
As conditions of probation, the sentencing judge ordered
Melendez to acknowledge paternity of the child, to support the
child financially, and to abide by any orders of support issued
by the Commonwealth’s Probate and Family Court.
Plaintiff has consistently objected to conditions of
Melendez’s probation.

After seeking in May 2012 in Norfolk

Probate and Family Court to establish paternity and child
support by Melendez, she learned in June 2012 that Melendez
sought to obtain visitation rights with the child.

Plaintiff,

who was at that time not represented by counsel, filed an action
in Probate and Family Court to obtain child support from
Melendez.5
In August 2012, Plaintiff sought in the Superior Court to
revise the conditions of Melendez’s probation and thereby
displace continuing Probate and Family Court jurisdiction.

She

requested that Melendez be required to pay criminal restitution,
rather than child support, in order to relieve her of the burden
of engaging in Probate and Family Court proceedings with him.
Plaintiff sought to avoid the prospect of an unwanted sixteen

5

Plaintiff alleges the clerk of the Probate and Family Court
coerced her into filing the action when the clerk told Plaintiff
she had “no choice” but to file. Although I accept Plaintiff’s
allegation as true, I do not find the alleged circumstance to be
relevant to my determination of this case.
4

year relationship with Melendez under which the Probate and
Family Court would supervise and adjust respective
responsibilities for the child.
While Plaintiff’s motion was pending in the Superior Court,
she filed a petition with a single justice of the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court pursuant to G.L. c. 211, § 3, requesting
that the single justice order the Superior Court to rule on her
motion and vacate the challenged portion of Melendez’s probation
conditions.

Thereafter, the Superior Court denied Plaintiff’s

motion and the single justice rejected Plaintiff’s petition.
The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the single justice’s denial
of relief in June 2013.

H.T. v. Commonwealth, 989 N.E.2d 424

(Mass. 2013).
In August 2013, Plaintiff filed suit in this court under 42
U.S.C. § 1983, raising the same challenge to Melendez’s
probation conditions she had raised in state court.

Judge

Stearns dismissed Plaintiff’s suit on the grounds that the
Eleventh Amendment barred her claims and that the doctrines of
Burford abstention and of Younger abstention counseled against
exercising jurisdiction.

Tyler v. Massachusetts, 981 F. Supp.

2d 92, 95-97 (D. Mass. 2013).

Judge Stearns observed that

Plaintiff was not without an appellate remedy in the state
courts:

5

As the Single Justice pointed out, her remedy—if one
need be sought—is an appeal from any order eventually
entered by the Probate and Family Court that plaintiff
believes to impinge on her rights under the United States
Constitution or the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights,
rights which she is free to assert in the Probate Court
proceeding.
Id. at 97.
Shortly after Judge Stearns dismissed her federal claims,
Plaintiff returned to Probate and Family Court and moved to
vacate that court’s jurisdiction or, in the alternative, to
terminate Melendez’s potential parental rights.

The court

denied the motion to vacate jurisdiction and, after an
evidentiary hearing, denied Melendez visitation rights and
required him to pay weekly child support of $110.00.
The Appeals Court affirmed.

H.T. v. J.M., 65 N.E.3d 31

(Table), 2016 WL 7046435 (Mass. App. Ct. 2016).

The Appeals

Court held that the Probate and Family court had jurisdiction to
adjudicate parental rights in this case pursuant to G.L. c.
209C, which grants the Probate and Family Court “exclusive
jurisdiction to make determinations regarding custody and
visitation in a paternity proceeding.”

Id. at *2.

The court

noted that “nothing in the language of G.L. c. 209C expressly
limits its applicability solely to children born as a result of
lawful intercourse.”

Id.

The court also discussed a 2014 amendment to G.L. c. 209C,
§ 3(a), which expressly provides that a court may grant
6

visitation rights to a parent convicted of statutory rape if
certain conditions are met.

Id. at *2 & n.8.

Although the

Appeals Court did not decide whether the 2014 amendment governed
Plaintiff’s case, it found the amendment reflected the
legislature’s recognition “that the Probate and Family Court has
jurisdiction to adjudicate the parental rights of a parent
convicted of statutory rape.”

Id. at *2.

Finally, the court

rejected Plaintiff’s arguments that public policy favored
vacating jurisdiction, finding that it “would be inconsistent
with ‘the declared public policy of this Commonwealth that
dependent children shall be maintained ‘as completely as
possible’ from the resources of their parents.’”

Id. at *3

(quoting L.W.K. v. E.R.C., 735 N.E.2d 359, 366 (Mass. 2000)).
The Supreme Judicial Court denied Plaintiff’s application
for further appellate review on January 26, 2017.
75 N.E.3d 1130 (Mass. 2017).

H.T. v. J.M,

Plaintiff did not seek a writ of

certiorari from the United States Supreme Court.

Rather, she

filed her complaint in this court on February 24, 2017.
II. ANALYSIS
In themes and variations, Plaintiff alleges the Supreme
Judicial Court’s decision violates her federal constitutional
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution.

Count I, which claims deprivation of rights under

the Fourteenth Amendment — incorporating the Fourth Amendment —
7

to the United States Constitution, asserts that “The Supreme
Judicial Court’s ruling threatens Plaintiff’s rights by exposing
Plaintiff to an unlawful restraint on her liberty and a seizure
of her person.”

Count II, which is based on the Fourteenth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause, states that “The Supreme
Judicial Court’s ruling threatens Plaintiff’s liberty and
privacy by forcing her to participate in [an] unwanted sixteenyear family court proceeding.”

Count III, which claims a

violation of Plaintiff’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s
Equal Protection Clause, declares that “The Supreme Judicial
Court’s decision violates Plaintiff’s equal protection rights
because it subjects her and other females to different,
inadequate and disparate legal protection on the basis of sex.”
A judge of a federal district court does not have subjectmatter jurisdiction over such claims in this setting.

Under the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal district courts lack authority
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.”
544 U.S. at 284.

Exxon Mobil Corp.,

In essence, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine

establishes that federal district courts may not become
appellate courts to review adverse state court decisions.

Id.

at 283; see also Davison v. Gov’t of Puerto Rico-Puerto Rico
8

Firefighters Corps., 471 F.3d 220, 223 (1st Cir. 2006) (“[T]he
proper forum for challenging an unlawful state court ruling is
the United States Supreme Court, on appeal of the highest state
court’s final judgment.”).
After Plaintiff filed this case, the First Circuit
reaffirming these basic principles, upheld dismissal of a § 1983
claim on Rooker-Feldman grounds in a similar setting.

In

McKenna v. Curtin, the plaintiff alleged that Rhode Island
judicial officers and court administrators, including five named
Rhode Island Supreme Court justices, violated his federal rights
by suspending his license to practice law; the plaintiff sought
a stay of his allegedly unlawful suspension as relief.
44 (1st Cir. 2017).

869 F.3d

The First Circuit held the Rooker-Feldman

doctrine barred consideration of the plaintiff’s claims because
he “(1) complains of a personal injury arising from the Rhode
Island Supreme Court’s suspension order, and (2) asks the
district court to countermand that order,” making his claims
“precisely the ‘functional equivalent of an appeal’ that the
Rooker-Feldman doctrine forbids.”

Id. at 48 (quoting Badillo-

Santiago v. Naveira-Merly, 378 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2004)).
Under this reasoning, Plaintiff’s claims here cannot elude
application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Each of Plaintiff’s

claims complains of personal injuries caused by the Supreme
Judicial Court’s ruling itself.

She filed this case only after
9

and as a result of the Supreme Judicial Court’s final judgment.
See generally Federacion de Maestros de Puerto Rico v. Junta de
Relaciones del Trabajo de Puerto Rico, 410 F.3d 17, 24 (1st Cir.
2005) (“[W]hen the highest state court in which review is
available has affirmed the judgment below and nothing is left to
be resolved, then without a doubt the state proceedings have
‘ended.’”).

Plaintiff cannot restyle and recommence litigation

which has reached finality in order to pursue proceedings in the
lower federal courts.

See McKenna, 869 F.3d at 48 (“Although

McKenna attempts to clear this jurisdictional hurdle by
reframing his case as a ‘public law’ challenge, he is felled by
his own complaint.

McKenna’s bald assertions that the Rules of

Professional conduct are ‘unconstitutional,’ and that the
defendants lacked ‘authority’ to discipline him, are
insufficient to raise a facial challenge when all of the
allegations in his complaint concern the constitutionality of
the rules as applied to him.

As such, adjudicating the

separation of powers issue McKenna raises would necessarily
require reviewing the merits of the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s
decision, thus violating the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.”).
Plaintiff’s prayer for relief seeks to have me declare the
Supreme Judicial Court’s decision unconstitutional and prevent
the defendants from exercising jurisdiction in similar
circumstances in the future, thereby directly inviting me to
10

review and reverse the Supreme Judicial Court’s judgment.6

That

is relief only the Supreme Court of the United States can
provide in these circumstances given the prior travel of this
litigation.
Because the Rooker-Feldman doctrine divests me of subjectmatter jurisdiction to consider any of Plaintiff’s claims, I
will grant Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

And because this

decision is jurisdictional and entirely disposes of the case, I

6

I note Plaintiff argues that the federal constitutional claims
she pressed in state court were never actually addressed there.
However, “[f]ederal courts’ application of the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine ‘does not depend on what issues were actually litigated
in the state court.’” Miller v. Nichols, 586 F.3d 53, 59 (1st
Cir. 2009) (quoting Maymo-Melendez v. Alvarez-Ramirez, 364 F.3d
27, 33 (1st Cir. 2004)). Rather, it comes into play “whenever
‘parties who lost in state court . . . seek[] review and
rejection of that judgment in federal court.’” Id. (quoting
Puerto Ricans For P.R. Party v. Dalmau, 544 F.3d 58, 68 (1st
Cir. 2008)). In any event, a review of the record indicates
that the state courts did consider her federal constitutional
claims, but did not view them as significant enough to justify
any written analysis. When it affirmed the Probate and Family
Court’s judgment, the Appeals Court observed in a footnote that
“[t]o the extent that we do not address other contentions made
by the mother, ‘they have not been overlooked. We find nothing
in them that requires discussion.’” H.T., 2016 WL 7046435, at
*3 n.10 (quoting Dep’t of Revenue v. Ryan R., 816 N.E.2d 1020,
1027 (Mass. App. Ct. 2004)). Consequently, Plaintiff’s
deployment of Sheehan v. Marr, 207 F.3d 35, 40-41 (1st Cir.
2000), in support of her argument is unavailing. In Sheehan,
the plaintiff did not have a state court vehicle to present his
federal discrimination claims in the prior state court
proceedings. Id. By contrast, Plaintiff here specifically
chose to use an available state court vehicle to raise her
federal claims.
11

do not consider the other independent bases for the defendant’s
motion to dismiss.

See supra note 4.
III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons discussed more fully above, I grant
Defendants’ [Dkt. No. 7] motion to dismiss and direct the Clerk
to enter final judgment.

/s/ Douglas P. Woodlock________
DOUGLAS P. WOODLOCK
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

12