9th Cir. Says Remedy for Dismissal of Removed FDCPA Claim Based on Rooker-Feldman is Not Dismissal, but Remand to State Court

In Grant v. Unifund CCR, LLC, — Fed.Appx. —-, 2014 WL 2444600 (9th Cir. 2014), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that an FDCPA case removed to federal court and then challenged based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine must be remanded, not dismissed.

Once the district court dismissed with prejudice the first class of claims, all of the remaining claims were subject to the Rooker–Feldman doctrine; therefore the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over them. Because this case was removed from state court, it is subject to the federal removal statute, which states “If at any time before final judgment it appears that the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, the case shall be remanded.” 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c) (emphasis added). Because the effect of Rooker–Feldman is that this court’s subject matter jurisdiction over the second class of claims is extinguished, the claims in this second class should not have been dismissed, but rather should have been remanded to California state court, whence they came. See  Mills v. Harmon Law Offices, P .C., 344 F.3d 42 (1st Cir.2003).