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8 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