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Nature of Suit Code: 140
Nature of Suit: Negotiable Instruments
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted May 11, 2015*

Decided May 11, 2015

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 14‐3673

YASMEEN STURDIVANT,

Plaintiff‐Appellant,

v.

SELECT PORTFOLIO SERVICING,

INC., and U.S. BANK, NATIONAL

ASSOCIATION,

Defendants‐Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District

Court for the Northern District of Illinois,

Eastern Division.

No. 14 C 8402

John J. Tharp, Jr.,

Judge.

O R D E R

Yasmeen Sturdivant filed this action against Select Portfolio Servicing and

U.S. Bank after the mortgage on her house in Crete, Illinois, was foreclosed. She alleged

that the “foreclosing entity” (which she never identified) did not hold the note or

mortgage at the time of the foreclosure. Sturdivant sought to quiet title to the property

under state law and claimed that the defendants had violated the Constitution of the

                                                 

* After examining the briefs and record, we have concluded that oral argument is

unnecessary. Thus the appeal is submitted on the briefs and record. See FED. R. APP. P.

34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

Case: 14-3673 Document: 18 Filed: 05/11/2015 Pages: 2
No. 14‐3673    Page 2

United States. The district court recognized the federal claim to be insubstantial and,

unable to discern another basis for subject‐matter jurisdiction, dismissed Sturdivant’s

complaint without prejudice. Sturdivant then amended her complaint to add a single

sentence asserting that the two financial institutions were state actors. This time, the

court dismissed the amended complaint without prejudice and also dismissed the case,

explaining that Sturdivant had not set out a basis for either diversity or federal‐question

jurisdiction. Her allegation that these defendants are state actors, the court reasoned, is

too implausible even to invoke the court’s jurisdiction.

On appeal Sturdivant argues that she said enough to allege state action. Neither

her amended complaint nor her brief offers any explanation whatsoever of how the

defendants, both private parties, engaged in state action, and, though her brief identifies

several means by which a private party might do so, none of these theories is remotely

relevant to her lawsuit. See generally Rodriguez v. Plymouth Ambulance Serv., 577 F.3d 816,

822–24 (7th Cir. 2009). Sturdivant’s § 1983 claim is thus “wholly insubstantial and

frivolous” and therefore does not invoke the court’s federal‐question jurisdiction.

See McCoy v. Iberdrola Renewables, Inc., 760 F.3d 674, 681 (7th Cir. 2014) (internal quotation

marks and citations omitted); cf. Avila v. Pappas, 591 F.3d 552, 555 (7th Cir. 2010)

(concluding that a “veneer of constitutional phraseology on top of a state tort claim

cannot justify its adjudication in federal court”).

She also argues that the district court applied various abstention doctrines and

the Rooker‐Feldman doctrine. See D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983);

Rooker v. Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923). But Sturdivant is mistaken; the district court

did not apply any abstention doctrine or the Rooker‐Feldman doctrine in dismissing her

case.

We have considered Sturdivant’s other contentions, and none has merit.

AFFIRMED.

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