James Heyward v. Diana Moreland

── James Heyward v. Diana Moreland ── Case No.: 25-11525 Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: March 31, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 25-11525 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/31/2026 Page: 1 of 6 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-11525 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ JAMES M. HEYWARD, Plaintiff-Appellant, versus DIANA MORELAND, Individually, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 8:24-cv-01528-SDM-AEP ____________________ Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and GRANT, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: In February 2024, James Heyward lost his house. Diana Moreland, a judge of Florida’s Twelfth Judicial Circuit, issued a USCA11 Case: 25-11525 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/31/2026 Page: 2 of 6 2 Opinion of the Court 25-11525 final judgment foreclosing on his property and ordering it to be sold. Four months later, Heyward sued Moreland (supposedly in her individual capacity) in federal court for impersonating a judge, claiming that she had never taken the oath required by the very first law ever passed by Congress.1 See 4 U.S.C. § 101. His complaint included four “causes of action,” each predicated on Moreland’s “impersonation” of a judge. The first two counts sought, as relief, declaratory judgments that all of Moreland’s acts as a circuit court judge were void. The second two counts sought monetary damages, each in excess of $10 million. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice, finding (1) that all of the claims were barred by absolute judicial immunity; (2) that the court had no subject-matter jurisdiction over the claims seeking declaratory relief under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine; (3) that the claims failed as a matter of law because Moreland’s oath was valid and—even if it was deficient—the de facto officer doctrine would cure any defect; and (4) the complaint’s failure to state a claim for relief was not plausibly susceptible to cure by amendment. We affirm. 1 An Act to regulate the Time and Manner of administering certain Oaths, ch. 1, 1 Stat. 23 (1789). Although Heyward consistently refers to this law as “1 Stat. 23,” the relevant provision is currently codified at 4 U.S.C. § 101. USCA11 Case: 25-11525 Document: 31-1 Date Filed: 03/31/2026 Page: 3 of 6 25-11525 Opinion of the Court 3 * * * We review the district court’s dismissal de novo, and we begin with Rooker-Feldman because it presents a jurisdictional bar, while judicial immunity is only an affirmative defense. Stevens v. Osuna, 877 F.3d 1293, 1301 (11th Cir. 2017); see Boyd v. Carroll, 624 F.2d 730, 732–33 (5th Cir. 1980). 2 Although Rooker-Feldman is a narrow doctrine, it does bar “all appeals of state court judgments—whether the plaintiff admits to filing a direct appeal of the judgment or tries to call the appeal something else.” Behr v. Campbell, 8 F.4th 1206, 1211 (11th Cir. 2021). That means that the district court was right to dec