Extrinsic fraud on a court is, by definition, not an error by that court. It is, rather, a wrongful act committed by the party or parties who engaged in the fraud. Rooker-Feldman therefore does not bar subject matter jurisdiction when a federal plaintiff alleges a cause of action for extrinsic fraud on a state court and seeks to set aside a state court judgment obtained by that fraud.
B. Other [*15] Alleged Wrongful Acts
Kougasian's remaining four causes of action are based on other alleged wrongful acts by the defendants. All of these causes of action were previously adjudicated by the state courts in Kougasian I and/or II. Because Kougasian is attempting to have the judgments of these two courts set aside based on the alleged extrinsic fraud by defendants, however, these four causes of action are not barred by Rooker-Feldman.
However, even if Kougasian were not seeking to set aside the judgments because of extrinsic fraud (or even if the federal court concludes that there was no extrinsic fraud), Rooker-Feldman still does not bar these four causes of action. Kougasian does not, in these causes of action, allege legal errors by the state courts; rather, she alleges wrongful acts by the defendants, such as negligently designing the ski run and negligently placing or failing to remove the rock. It is true that factual allegations and legal claims in these four causes of action are almost identical to the allegations and claims asserted in state court in Kougasian I and II, but that is not sufficient reason to find the causes of action barred by Rooker-Feldman [*16] .
If issues presented in a federal suit are "inextricably intertwined" with issues presented in a forbidden de facto appeal from a state court decision, Rooker-Feldman dictates that those intertwined issues may not be litigated. See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 483 n.16. But the issues in Kougasian's four causes of action are not "inextricably intertwined" within the meaning of Rooker-Feldman. In an ordinary language sense, the issues in Kougasian's claims are indeed "inextricably intertwined" with the issues in Kougasian I and II. But, as we explained in Noel v. Hall, "inextricably intertwined" has a narrow and specialized meaning in the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Noel, 341 F.3d at 1166.
