Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_19-cv-00256/USCOURTS-azd-2_19-cv-00256-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 220
Nature of Suit: Foreclosure
Cause of Action: 28:1331(a) Fed. Question: Real Property

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Cherie A. Fishburne, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

CitiMortgage Incorporated, et al., 

Defendants.

No. CV-19-00256-PHX-JJT

ORDER 

 At issue is pro se Plaintiff Cherie A. Fishburne’s Emergency Motion for Preliminary 

Injunction (Doc. 28, Mot.), which asks the Court to enjoin Defendant CitiMortgage Inc.’s 

(“CMI”) non-judicial foreclosure sale of the property on which Plaintiff resides, scheduled 

for March 11, 2019. Because all Defendants had already filed Motions to Dismiss in this 

action before Plaintiff filed her Emergency Motion, and Plaintiff filed the Emergency 

Motion just five business days before the scheduled sale, the Court excused Defendants 

from filing responses to Plaintiff’s Emergency Motion. At the Court’s prompting, Plaintiff 

filed a Response (Doc. 31) to CMI’s Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 19) as it pertains to Plaintiff’s 

Emergency Motion, and specifically her likelihood of success on the merits. 

To obtain preliminary injunctive relief, Plaintiff must show that “(1) she is likely to 

succeed on the merits, (2) she is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of 

preliminary relief, (3) the balance of equities tips in her favor, and (4) an injunction is in 

the public interest.” Garcia v. Google, Inc., 786 F.3d 733, 740 (9th Cir. 2015) (citing 

Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008)). The Ninth Circuit Court of 

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Appeals, employing a sliding scale analysis, has also stated that a “likelihood of success 

per se is not an absolute requirement,” and “‘serious questions going to the merits’ and a 

hardship balance that tips sharply toward the plaintiff can support issuance of an injunction, 

assuming the other two elements of the Winter test are also met.” Drakes Bay Oyster Co. 

v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 1073, 1085 (9th Cir. 2013) cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 2877 (2014) (quoting 

Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Cottrell, 632 F.3d 1127, 1132 (9th Cir. 2011)). 

In her Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Plaintiff does not proffer any 

new evidence to show a likelihood of success on the merits, but rather points to her 

allegations in the Complaint. (Mot at 3-4 (“The Complaint states Defendants’ violations 

that render the Judgment void and the subject Deed of Trust unenforceable.”).) CMI 

challenges the merits of Plaintiff’s claims in this action by way of its Motion to Dismiss 

(Doc. 19). Specifically, CMI argues that Plaintiff is estopped from bringing her challenge 

to the validity of the Deed of Trust on the property because she already made that challenge 

in a state court action brought by CMI, and the state court ruled on the merits, and on 

reconsideration, that the Deed of Trust is a valid encumbrance on the property. 

The judicially created doctrine of claim preclusion, or res judicata, “bars all grounds 

for recovery which could have been asserted, whether they were or not, in a prior suit 

between the same parties on the same cause of action.” Costantini v. Trans World Airlines, 

681 F.2d 1199, 1201 (9th Cir. 1982) (internal quotations and citations omitted). Federal 

courts must look to state law to determine the preclusive effect of a state court judgment. 

See Intri-Plex Techs., Inc. v. Crest Grp., Inc., 499 F.3d 1048, 1052 (9th Cir. 2007). Under 

Arizona law, there must be (1) a final judgment on the merits, (2) common identity of the 

parties and the capacity in which they appeared, (3) common identity of the subject matter, 

and (4) common identity of the cause of action. Beseder, Inc. v. Osten Art, Inc., No. CV 

05-00031-PHX, 2006 WL 2730769, at *5 (D. Ariz. Sep. 25, 2006) (citing Hall v. Lalli, 952 

P.2d 748, 750 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1999)). Arizona follows the “same evidence test” in which 

“the plaintiff is precluded from subsequently maintaining a second action based upon the 

same transaction, if the evidence needed to sustain the second action would have sustained 

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the first action.” Pettit v. Pettit, 189 P.3d 1102, 1105 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2008) (internal citation 

omitted). 

Here, the Arizona Superior Court’s judgment was a final judgment on the merits. 

(See Doc. 19-3 Ex. C.)1

 Moreover, the same parties were involved in a dispute over 

ownership of the same property; Plaintiff has claimed that CMI’s Deed of Trust on the 

property is unenforceable in both actions. Finally, the evidence Plaintiff now alludes to in 

support of her request for a Preliminary Injunction is the same evidence that would have 

sustained the state court action and any counterclaims therein. To the extent that Plaintiff 

now argues that she has uncovered new evidence that CMI recorded an allegedly “false 

Notice of Substitution of Trustee and Notice of Trustee’s Sale with the Maricopa County 

Recorder in 2008,” Plaintiff concedes that she “did attempt to seek relief from the lower 

Court and filed a Motion for Reconsideration based on the new evidence[,] which the Court 

denied.” (Doc. 31 at 3.) By “lower Court,” this Court presumes Plaintiff is referring to the 

state court, which is not a “lower Court” to this Court. Even if the state court did not have 

the newly uncovered evidence before it, Plaintiff does not begin to show that she could not 

have uncovered the new evidence with reasonable diligence in the state court action. As a 

result, the doctrine of res judicata applies to bar Plaintiff’s present claims underlying her 

request for a Preliminary Injunction. 

The Court also notes that, to the extent Plaintiff’s request for a Preliminary 

Injunction is based on her contention that the state court erred in reaching its judgment (e.g. 

Mot. at 3), the Rooker-Feldman doctrine also bars Plaintiff’s request. The Rooker-Feldman

doctrine derives from two Supreme Court decisions, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 

413 (1923), and D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983). First in Rooker

and later in Feldman, the Supreme Court held that federal district courts cannot review 

state court decisions in an appellate capacity. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has held 

that Rooker-Feldman “prevents federal courts from second-guessing state court decisions 

by barring the lower federal courts from hearing de facto appeals from state-court 

 

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 The Court takes judicial notice of the state court records in the prior proceeding (Docs. 19-3; 30). 

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judgments.” Bianchi v. Rylaarsdam, 334 F.3d 895, 898 (9th Cir. 2003). “It is a forbidden 

de facto appeal under Rooker-Feldman when the plaintiff in federal district court complains 

of a legal wrong allegedly committed by the state court and seeks relief from the judgment 

of that court.” Noel v. Hall, 341 F.3d 1148, 1163 (9th Cir. 2004). 

 Most of Plaintiff’s claims in the Complaint fall squarely within the ambit of RookerFeldman by attempting to challenge the state court judgment that CMI’s Deed of Trust on 

the property is valid and enforceable. Those claims are thus also barred under RookerFeldman. 

 In her Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction, Plaintiff has failed to show 

any possibility of success on the merits of her claim that CMI’s Deed of Trust on the 

property is unenforceable, which forms the premise of her request for the Court to enjoin 

the Trustee’s Sale scheduled for March 11, 2019. Accordingly, the Court must deny the 

Emergency Motion. 

 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED denying Plaintiff’s Emergency Motion for 

Preliminary Injunction (Doc. 28). 

 Dated this 8th day of March, 2019. 

Honorable John J. Tuchi 

United States District Judge 

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