Eric Noel v. Brian C. Hall Sandra A. Hall, Fka Sandra Johnson, and Gabrielle S. Lennartz Herb Weisser Michelle A. Merchant

Eric Noel and Sandra and Brian Hall are no strangers to the inside of a courtroom. This lawsuit is the fifth between Noel and Sandra Hall, and the second between Noel and Brian Hall. In this suit, Noel brought ten claims.

The district court dismissed one of Noel’s claims against the Halls for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We reverse this dismissal. The district court dismissed Noel’s nine other claims against the Halls as claim-precluded, on the ground that they should have been asserted as compulsory counterclaims in earlier state-court litigation. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of six of these nine claims against Sandra Hall as claim-precluded. However, we reverse its dismissal of three of these nine claims against Sandra Hall and all nine claims against Brian Hall.

I. Background

This unfortunate saga began in May 1995 when Eric Noel and Sandra Hall (née Johnson) agreed to buy, train, and sell Red Hot Prospect — a horse that was no such thing. Hall paid the purchase price of $750, and Noel agreed to train Red as a show jumper and to pay the expenses. Noel and Hall agreed that they would eventually sell Red and share equally…