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concluding that the district court was correct to dismiss a complaint barred by the Rooker/Feldman doctrine as frivolous
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No. 10-50201 Summary Calendar.
November 1, 2010.
Kristofer Thomas Kastner, Houston, TX, pro se.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, No. 1:09-CV-916.
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, SMITH, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-appellant Kristofer Thomas Kastner, proceeding pro se, appeals the district court's dismissal of his lawsuit against the Texas Board of Law Examiners ("BLE"), the State of Texas, and various individuals connected with those entities. Kastner asserts several claims arising from the defendants' December 2009 denial of his application to practice law in Texas. After a magistrate judge granted Kastner leave to proceed in forma pauperis, the district court dismissed Kastner's complaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2).
Specifically, Kastner alleges that the denial of admission violated his due process rights, his constitutional right to Full Faith and Credit as implement by 28 U.S.C. § 1738, and Tex. Gov. Code §§ 82.028 and 82.030. He also alleges claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his civil rights and libel.
Kastner first applied to practice law in Texas shortly after passing the bar examination in 1999. After determining that Kastner lacked the requisite moral character and that he suffered from a chemical dependency, the BLE denied Kastner's application, but stated that he would be allowed to apply again after July 2001 if he attended a rehabilitation program and refrained from violating the law. Kastner eventually reapplied for admission in 2005. Upon investigation, the BLE reached a preliminary determination that Kastner still lacked good moral character, based in part on two criminal convictions in the intervening years, and that he still suffered from a chemical dependency, based on his failure to attend the rehabilitation program. After a full hearing and a series of delays due to legal action, the BLE issued its final decision denying Kastner's 2005 application on December 17, 2009. This lawsuit followed.
This is not Kastner's first lawsuit challenging the BLE decisions. Kastner filed a materially identical lawsuit in 2007 following the BLE's preliminary determination that he still lacked good moral character. We ultimately held that the district court lacked jurisdiction over Kastner's claims at that time. With respect to the 2005 application, we held that Kastner's claims were not ripe for review because the BLE had not yet issued a final decision; in the alternative, we held that Younger abstention prohibited the federal courts from considering Kastner's constitutional challenges to the state BLE proceedings. To the extent Kastner also sought to challenge the denial of his 1999 application, we held that we were barred from hearing those claims by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Rooker-Feldman holds that "lower federal courts lack jurisdiction to review state court judgments when the constitutional claims are `inextricably intertwined' with [a] challenged state court judgment."
See Kastner v. Tex. Bd. of Law Exam'rs, 278 Fed.Appx. 346 (5th Cir. 2008) (per curiam) (unpublished).
Id. at 348-49.
Id. at 349 (citing Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971)); see also Wightman v. Tex. Sup. Ct., 84 F.3d 188 (5th Cir. 1996).
Id. (citing Rooker v. Fidelity Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), and D.C. Ct.App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 483, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983)).
Richard v. Hoechst Celanese Chem. Group., Inc., 355 F.3d 345, 350 (5th Cir. 2003).
Although Kastner filed the present complaint after the BLE's final decision, and thus his claims are now ripe, the district court correctly held that the complaint must be dismissed because Kastner remains unable to overcome the bar of Rooker-Feldman. State bar admissions determinations are judicial proceedings, and any challenge must be raised by appeal to the state appellate courts, not by collateral attack in a federal district court. Kastner insists that his claims fall outside of Rooker-Feldman because he purports to challenge the constitutionality of the BLE rules generally, rather than just their application in his case, but we already held in his prior lawsuit that his complaint can only be understood as an as-applied challenge.
See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 482, 103 S.Ct. 1303.
See generally Liedtke v. State Bar of Tex., 18 F.3d 315 (5th Cir. 1994).
See Kastner, 278 Fed.Appx. at 349.
Because there is no material difference between Kastner's prior lawsuit and his present complaint for purposes of Rooker-Feldman, the district court was correct to dismiss Kastner's new complaint as frivolous. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.