Circuit Watcher

07-1208 Geiger v. Foley Hoag LLP Ret. Plan
Before Lipez, Circuit Judge, Cyr, Senior Circuit Judge, and Howard, Circuit Judge.
HOWARD, Circuit Judge. The genesis of this appeal is a contentious Massachusetts divorce. As part of the distribution of marital property, a state court judge assigned a portion of David Geiger’s interest in three retirement plans to his (now ex) wife, Karen Leeds. In addition to exhausting his state court appeals of the divorce order, Geiger filed suit in federal court against the retirement plans and their administrator,¹ seeking to permanently enjoin the plans from transferring Geiger’s interests to Leeds. After Leeds successfully moved to intervene in the suit, she filed a motion to dismiss, which the district court granted pursuant to the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. On appeal, Geiger contends that the district court first erroneously allowed Leeds’s intervention, and then incorrectly granted the motion to dismiss. We affirm, albeit for reasons different than those cited by the district court. … Geiger v. Foley Hoag LLP Ret. Plan.

1. 1The original defendants were Foley Hoag LLP Retirement Plan, Foley Hoag LLP Savings and Retirement Plan, and Foley Hoag LLP Money Purchase Pension Plan (collectively, “the plans”). Foley Hoag is also named separately as the plans’ administrator. They remained as defendants after Leeds’s intervention. Geiger, appearing pro se in this action, is a litigation partner at the Foley Hoag law firm in Boston. For ease of reference we will refer to the firm as “Foley.” [↩]