Facts
The U.S. Congress enacted several pieces of legislation with respect to Washington, D.C.'s local judicial system. One required final judgments from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to be treated like final judgments from the high court of any state; another permitted that Court of Appeals to create rules governing the qualifications and admissions of attorneys to practice in the D.C. courts. The Court of Appeals then passed rules requiring applicants to the D.C. bar to have graduated from an ABA-accredited law school.
The plaintiffs - Feldman and Hickey - were practicing attorneys from other states, but neither had graduated from ABA-accredited law schools. Feldman had been admitted to the Virginia bar through an apprenticeship, and had been admitted to the Maryland bar through a waiver of their requirements, based on his personal experience. Feldman was denied admission by the Committee on Admissions of the District of Columbia Bar, so he sought a similar waiver of the D.C. rule, sending a letter to the D.C. Court of Appeals that suggested that their absolute prohibition of lawyers who had not attended certain schools was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nevertheless, the D.C. Courts issued an opinion confirming that they would not waive their requirement. Hickey had a similar background, but did not suggest that the D.C. Court of Appeals was in violation of any laws.
The plaintiff then filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which denied jurisdiction based on Rooker's prohibition against federal courts hearing appeals of state court judgments. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed, saying that this was not the kind of judicial determination that a federal court would be barred from hearing on appeal from a decision of a state court.
Read more about this topic: District Of Columbia Court Of Appeals V. Feldman
Famous quotes containing the word facts:
“Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“My facts shall be falsehoods to the common sense. I would so state facts that they shall be significant, shall be myths or mythologic. Facts which the mind perceived, thoughts which the body thought—with these I deal.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)