Ramirez v. Bank of America, N.A.

Background

Bank of America, N.A. asked the court to certify its October 7, 2022 order for interlocutory review and to stay, or pause, the litigation while that review was pending. The earlier order had denied the bank’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ amended complaint.

The bank argued that a decision in an Eastern District of California case involving similar factual allegations and claims had reached conclusions contrary to this court’s conclusions. The bank sought review of this question: whether denying a consumer’s request to waive a contractually authorized fee was enough to state a claim in light of representations about making pandemic assistance available.

Legal standard

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), a district court may certify a nonfinal order for immediate appellate review if the order involves a controlling legal question, there is substantial disagreement about that question, and an immediate appeal may materially advance the end of the litigation. The party seeking certification has the burden of showing that these requirements are met.

The court explained that ordinary disputes about how to apply law to facts do not satisfy the requirements. Interlocutory review is reserved for situations in which an appellate court can decide a purely legal question without resolving issues in the factual record.

Ruling

Even assuming the motion was timely and accepting the bank’s description of the differences between the two decisions, the court denied the motion. The court reasoned that, in the bank’s own words, the decisions examined virtually identical representations under the same controlling legal framework but reached opposite conclusions. The court held that this amounted only to a difference in applying law to the facts, not a basis for interlocutory review.

The court therefore denied the bank’s motion seeking certification and a stay and terminated docket number 59. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers signed the order.