Amelio v. Quicken Loans, Inc.

Background

Alfonso Amelio and Carmine Amelio sued McCabe, Weisberg & Conway, P.C.; Fein, Such & Crane LLP; Seterus, Inc.; Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC; Onewest Bank, N.A.; Quicken Loans, Inc.; Federal National Mortgage Association; Concrete Properties, LLC; and Sandelands Eyet LLP. The plaintiffs filed the case without lawyers and alleged 19 claims concerning the origination, servicing, and completed foreclosure of a mortgage on property identified in the opinion as 68 Crotty Road, Middletown, New York.

In 2006, Alfonso Amelio signed an $84,000 note to Quicken, and Alfonso and Carmine Amelio executed a mortgage securing the note. The mortgage was later assigned to Ocwen and then to the Federal National Mortgage Association. Onewest began a state-court foreclosure action in 2009. The state court later found the note valid and enforceable, entered a final foreclosure judgment on January 8, 2018, and denied motions seeking to vacate that judgment. The state court also ruled that Carmine Amelio was not a proper intervenor because he was not a borrower, mortgagor, or property owner. The property was sold at a foreclosure auction to Concrete Properties, LLC on September 18, 2018.

The federal complaint asserted claims including abuse of process, violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and New York General Business Law § 349, racketeering, fraud-related claims, unjust enrichment, negligence, conversion, emotional distress, slander of title, requests for declaratory relief and quiet title, and alleged violations of the First and Thirteenth Amendments. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which concerns subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which concerns whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim.

Rooker-Feldman Analysis

The court applied the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, a jurisdictional rule that generally prevents federal district courts from reviewing and overturning state-court judgments. The court identified four required conditions: the federal plaintiff lost in state court; the plaintiff complains of injuries caused by the state-court judgment; the plaintiff asks the federal court to review and reject that judgment; and the state-court judgment came before the federal case began.

The court concluded that all four conditions were met. The plaintiffs had lost in the foreclosure case and had unsuccessfully sought to vacate the foreclosure judgment. The federal claims challenged the validity of the mortgage and asserted that the foreclosure judgment had been obtained through fabricated or tampered evidence. The court reasoned that deciding for the plaintiffs would require it to reject the state court’s determinations concerning the foreclosure and the lender’s standing to foreclose.

The court also found that the plaintiffs’ requests to declare the mortgage and electronic note void and to declare them lawful owners of the property directly conflicted with the state-court foreclosure judgment. The court therefore concluded that the claims were either direct or indirect attacks on that judgment and were outside the federal district court’s jurisdiction.

Disposition

Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1). The court did not reach the defendants’ separate arguments under Rule 12(b)(6) or their other grounds for dismissal. The court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss, denied the plaintiffs’ request for leave to amend, denied their request for a 30-day extension to retain counsel, terminated the identified motions, and directed the clerk to close the case.