Almazon v. JP Morgan Chase Bank

Background

Doina Almazon sued JPMorgan Chase Bank, which the opinion calls “Chase,” on July 17, 2024. She alleged that Chase engaged in unfair and fraudulent mortgage-modification practices and unlawfully started foreclosure proceedings, resulting in the auction of her property at 27 Grape Lane in Hicksville, New York. The opinion states that her claims arose under state law, chiefly Georgia law.

The dispute followed extensive litigation. Chase had previously brought a foreclosure action in Nassau County Supreme Court. That court granted Chase’s unopposed summary-judgment motion in 2017, later entered a judgment directing that the property be sold at auction, and the New York Court of Appeals denied Almazon leave to appeal in 2023. The property was sold at auction on January 23, 2024.

The opinion also describes several earlier state and federal proceedings involving similar allegations. In a prior related proceeding in this Court, Almazon’s claims were dismissed after the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to review or nullify the state foreclosure judgment and that res judicata, a rule generally barring repeated litigation of claims already decided, barred her remaining damages claims. Other related lawsuits were also dismissed or voluntarily ended.

Motion and Report

Chase moved to dismiss the current complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. It also asked for an injunction requiring Almazon to obtain court permission before filing additional related lawsuits against Chase and related parties in the Southern or Eastern Districts of New York.

The Court referred the case to Magistrate Judge Barbara Moses. On January 31, 2025, Judge Moses issued a report and recommendation advising that Chase’s motions be granted. Almazon objected by letters dated February 1 and February 5, 2025.

The district court explained that specific objections to a magistrate judge’s recommendation receive fresh review, called de novo review. General or unclear objections receive review for clear error, meaning the court looks for an obvious mistake. Although the court read Almazon’s filings generously because she was representing herself, it found that most of her objections were general and difficult to interpret. The court nevertheless reviewed her objection to the proposed filing injunction de novo.

Filing Injunction

The court agreed with Judge Moses that a filing injunction was appropriate. It relied on Almazon’s history of repeatedly litigating the same or substantially similar claims against the same parties in state and federal courts. The court stated that the injunction was not intended to minimize the significance of losing a home, but was intended to address repetitive litigation that wasted judicial resources and undermined the finality of judgments.

The injunction does not completely prohibit future lawsuits. Instead, before filing a related lawsuit in the Southern or Eastern District of New York, Almazon must obtain leave, or permission, from the court where she proposes to proceed. Her separate motion must list every prior case she filed against Chase, its affiliates, or its personnel and state each case’s disposition; attach the proposed complaint; and explain why the proposed claims are not barred by res judicata, collateral estoppel, or the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

The injunction applies to lawsuits arising from or related to the property, its former mortgage, the attempted mortgage modification, the foreclosure proceedings, the demolition proceedings, or the property’s auction sale. It applies to suits against JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, its affiliates, or its personnel.

Ruling

Judge Valerie Caproni overruled all of Almazon’s objections, found no clear error in Judge Moses’s report and recommendation, and adopted it in full. The court dismissed the complaint, granted Chase’s motion to dismiss, granted the requested filing injunction, directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending motion, and closed the case.

The opinion does not reproduce the full reasoning from Judge Moses’s report concerning the dismissal. It states that Chase’s motion challenged subject-matter jurisdiction and the sufficiency of the complaint, and that the district court adopted the report and recommendation in its entirety.