Thomas, J., dissenting
Media, 588 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2019) (slip op., at 4–5); Monsanto, 561 U. S., at 150–153. Thus, whenever a party seeks relief from a federal court, the elements that bring his claim within Article III in the first place—the nature and source of his injury and the remedy needed to redress it—also dictate whether his claim invokes original or appellate jurisdiction.
The conceptual distinction between original and appellate jurisdiction also animates the Rooker–Feldman doctrine—which, despite its name, is not so much a “doctrine” as a basic fact of federal statutory law. This Court has discretionary appellate jurisdiction to review certain state-court judgments by certiorari. 28 U. S. C. §1257(a). But no other federal court has appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, and, in particular, “[t]he jurisdiction possessed by the District Courts is strictly original.” Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 416 (1923); see, e.g., 28 U. S. C. §1331 (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under [federal law]”). Thus, if the losing party in a state judicial proceeding “claim[s] that the state judgment itself violates [his] federal rights”—a claim that calls for an exercise of appellate jurisdiction—his only remedy in the federal system is certiorari
Comm’n, 542 U. S. 1305, 1305–1306 (2004) (Rehnquist, C. J., in chambers) (quoting 28 U. S. C. §1651(a)). And, while certain original remedies, like declaratory judgments and quiet title decrees, do not necessarily impose new duties on the losing defendant, they conclusively establish the parties’ legal relations from which such duties flow. See Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249, 261–265 (1933). Significantly, this Court has long held that an action for declaratory relief alone implicates the same constitutional “case or controversy” as would an action for coercive relief involving the same parties and subject matter, see ibid., and that declaratory relief “cannot alone supply jurisdiction otherwise absent,” California v. Texas, 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 9); see also R. Fallon, J. Manning, D. Meltzer, & D. Shapiro, Hart and Wechsler’s The Federal Courts and the Federal System 841 (7th ed. 2015).
