Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-16-02753/USCOURTS-ca3-16-02753-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 220
Nature of Suit: Foreclosure
Cause of Action: 

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 16-2753

___________

RUBEN MARTINEZ,

Appellant

v.

CAPITAL ONE, N.A.

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. Civil No. 2-15-cv-00266)

District Judge: Honorable Jose L. Linares

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

October 3, 2016

Before: CHAGARES, KRAUSE and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: January 4, 2017)

___________

OPINION*

___________

PER CURIAM

Pro se appellant Ruben Martinez appeals from an order of the United States 

District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissing his Second Amended Complaint 

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). We will affirm.

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

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2

In 2007, Martinez executed a mortgage agreement and accompanying promissory 

note with GreenPoint Mortgage Funding (GMF), in connection with Martinez’s purchase 

of a residential property in New Jersey. Martinez filed this action in 2015, apparently 

after foreclosure proceedings were initiated on the property, claiming that GMF 

“knowingly, liberally, [and] greedily . . . sold [him] a deceptive loan product.” The 

gravamen of Martinez’s complaint is that Capital One – the alleged holder of the note1 –

caused his loan to be securitized,

2

 and subsequently sold, without first advising him. He

alleges breach of contract, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

On March 1, 2016, the District Court granted Capital One’s motion to dismiss 

Martinez’s Amended Complaint, but permitted him to re-plead. After Martinez filed a 

Second Amended Complaint, which the Court found “rehashe[d] the exact same 

allegations as the previously dismissed complaint,” the Court dismissed Martinez’s 

Second Amended Complaint with prejudice and directed the clerk to close the case. This 

timely appeal ensued. 

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and review the District Court’s 

dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) using the same test applied by a district court – asking

whether the complaint contains “sufficient factual matter; accepted as true; to state a 

 

1

 Martinez merely “believes that [GMF] sold its interest in the Loan[,] [with] Defendant 

[Capital One] serving as the Loan Service and not the Owner of the Loan.” Capital One 

represented in its motion to dismiss that “GMF is the holder of the Note and Mortgage 

and that the Note and Mortgage were never transferred” to Capital One. We need not 

resolve this factual dispute because Martinez’s claims fail either way.

2

“Securitization is a process by which expected payment streams are pooled together and 

restructured into securities, which are then sold to investors.” In re Oakwood Homes 

Corp., 356 F. App'x 622, 624 (3d Cir. 2009)

Case: 16-2753 Document: 003112502701 Page: 2 Date Filed: 01/04/2017
3

claim to relief that is plausible on this face.” Fantone v. Latini, 780 F.3d 184, 186-193 

(3d Cir. 2015) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). We agree with the 

District Court that Martinez’s original Amended Complaint contains insufficient 

allegations to survive Capital One’s motion to dismiss. And because the District Court 

accurately found that the Second Amended Complaint merely re-asserted the allegations 

contained in the original,

3

it properly dismissed the Second Amended Complaint without 

providing Martinez another opportunity to amend. See Jablonski v. Pan Am. World 

Airways, Inc., 863 F.2d 289, 292 (3d Cir. 1988) (“Amendment of the complaint is futile 

if the amendment will not cure the deficiency in the original complaint or if the amended 

complaint cannot withstand a renewed motion to dismiss.”).

Martinez claims that Capital One breached the terms of the mortgage agreement

“by failing to notify [him] of the change in ownership of the Note and Mortgage,” and by 

failing to “record the transfer of Plaintiff's Loan in the County records.” But as the 

District Court observed, the mortgage agreement specifically authorizes the sale of the 

note without notice to Martinez, and he fails to identify any contractual provision, or 

statute, that requires the recordation of any such sales or transfers.4 Martinez’s fraud in 

the concealment claim – in which he alleges that, had Capital One informed him that the 

loan was securitized, he “would not have entered into the Loan and would have rescinded 

 

3 As the Court observed, the only difference between the two complaints is that the 

Second Amended Complaint contains three additional paragraphs in the “Introduction” 

section, which primarily update the procedural history of the case.

4

In addition, as the District Court accurately noted, “[t]he fact that assignments of 

mortgages may be recorded does not affect the validity of an assignment of a mortgage 

which has not been recorded.” EMC Mortgage Corp. v. Chaudhri, 946 A.2d 578, 588 

(N.J. Sup. Ct. App. Div. 2008).

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4

it from the time of origination” – fails for essentially the same reason. The mortgage 

agreement unambiguously informs him of the possibility of securitization,5and thus he 

cannot credibly claim that Capital One misrepresented this possibility. 

Lastly, the District Court properly dismissed Martinez’s claim for emotional 

distress because he failed to allege conduct “so outrageous in character, and so extreme in 

degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, 

and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.” Taylor v. Metzger, 706 A.2d 685, 703 

(N.J. 1998) (internal citations and quotations omitted). The factual allegation underlying 

this claim – that Capital One “knowingly and recklessly misrepresented . . . that it was 

entitled to exercise the power of sale provision [foreclosure] contained in the Mortgage” 

– does not meet the applicable standard. Accordingly, we will affirm the order of the 

District Court.6

 

5 The agreement provides that “the note or a partial interest in the note (together with this 

Instrument and the other Loan Documents) may be sold one or more times without prior 

Notice to the Borrower.”

6

In his pro se brief submitted to this Court, Martinez contends, for the first time in this 

litigation, that he is entitled to quiet title to the mortgaged property. We decline to 

address this claim because “[a]s a general rule we do not review issues raised for the first 

time at the appellate level.” Gardiner v. Virgin Islands Water & Power Auth., 145 F.3d 

635, 646–47 (3d Cir. 1998) (internal quotations omitted).

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