Rooker-Feldman doctrine
The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a rule of civil procedure enunciated by the United States Supreme Court in two cases, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923) and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). The doctrine holds that lower United States federal courts have no subject matter jurisdiction to sit in direct review of state court decisions unless Congress has enacted legislation that specifically authorized such relief.
An example of legislation that has been interpreted to this effect is 28 U.S.C. § 2254, which authorizes federal courts to grant writs of habeas corpus. Another explicit legislative exception to this doctrine was the "Palm Sunday Compromise," a statute passed by Congress to permit federal courts to review the decisions of Florida courts in the Terry Schiavo case.
The doctrine has been held to apply to any state court decisions that are judicial in nature. For example, a judge's decision not to hire an applicant for a job is not a "judicial" decision.