Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03707/USCOURTS-ca8-05-03707-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
GMAC Mortgage Corporation
Appellee
Eddie Watt
Appellant
Susan Watt
Appellant

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Andrew W. Bogue, United States District Judge for the District

of South Dakota, sitting by designation.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-3707

___________

Eddie Watt; Susan Watt, *

*

Appellants, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the 

* Western District of Arkansas.

GMAC Mortgage Corporation, *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: April 21, 2006.

Filed: August 4, 2006 (Corrected 8/16/06)

___________

Before ARNOLD and COLLOTON, Circuit Judges, and BOGUE,1

 District Judge.

___________

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

Eddie and Susan Watt brought this class action on behalf of themselves and

other homeowners whose mortgages are serviced by GMAC Mortgage Corporation.

The Watts claimed that GMAC violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act

(RESPA), see 12 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2617, by charging a $20 fee each time the plaintiffs

requested their payoff amount from GMAC's website. The Watts also alleged that

GMAC breached its contract with the plaintiffs.

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The Honorable Harry F. Barnes, United States District Judge for the Western

District of Arkansas.

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GMAC filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief

could be granted, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), and the district court2

 granted the

motion as to the RESPA claim and declined to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining

state breach-of-contract claim, see 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). After the district court

denied the Watts' motion to reconsider, the plaintiffs appealed, asserting that they

stated a RESPA claim because that law does not permit a mortgage servicer to charge

fees for payoff statements requested by a homeowner. In the alternative, the Watts

maintain that even if RESPA permits a fee to be charged, a factual question exists as

to whether GMAC's fees were reasonable. We affirm.

I.

The Watts contend that RESPA did not permit GMAC, as their mortgage

servicer, to charge them fees for payoff statements that they requested through its

website because such statements were made in response to "qualified written

requests," and RESPA imposes a duty upon servicers to provide information in

response to such requests. See 12 U.S.C. § 2605(e). Since RESPA imposes a duty to

respond but does not state that servicers may charge fees for statements sent in

response to qualified written requests, the Watts argue, servicers are prohibited from

charging fees.

RESPA does indeed establish classes of statements for which a servicer is not

permitted to charge the borrowers a fee. See 12 U.S.C. § 2610; see also 24 C.F.R.

§ 3500.12. But responses to a qualified written request as described in § 2605 are not

included in this group. A standard axiom of statutory interpretation is expressio unius

est exclusio alterius, or the expression of one thing excludes others not expressed.

Jama v. INS, 329 F.3d 630, 634 (8th Cir. 2003), aff'd sub nom., Jama v. Immigration

and Customs Enforcement, 543 U.S. 335, 341 (2005). Although "such canons 'long

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have been subordinated to the doctrine that courts will construe the details of an act

in conformity with its dominating general purpose,' " Herman & MacLean v.

Huddleston, 459 U.S. 375, 387 n.23, (1983) (quoting SEC v. C.M. Joiner Leasing

Corp., 320 U.S. 344, 350-51 (1943)), "[w]e do not lightly assume that Congress has

omitted from its adopted text requirements that it nonetheless intends to apply, and our

reluctance is even greater when Congress has shown elsewhere in the same statute that

it knows how to make such a requirement manifest," Jama, 543 U.S. at 341.

Congress expressed its intent to preclude servicers from charging fees for

certain statements, and we think that this fairly implies, absent evidence to the

contrary, that types of statements not enumerated are excluded from the prohibition.

If Congress intended that all RESPA's statutory requirements were to be provided

without charge, moreover, it had an excellent chance to say so. In 1990, when § 2605

was enacted, Congress also amended § 2610 to prohibit servicers and lenders from

charging fees for escrow account statements. It said nothing about requests for payoff

amounts. See Cranston-Gonzalez Nat'l Affordable Housing Act, Pub. L. 101-625,

§§ 941-42, 104 Stat. 4079, 4405-12 (1990).

RESPA was intended to reform the real estate settlement or closing process to

give consumers "greater and more timely information" on the nature and the amount

of settlement costs and to protect them "from unnecessarily high settlement charges."

12 U.S.C. § 2601(a). We do not believe that this purpose will be undermined by

allowing mortgage servicers to charge a fee for information provided in response to

qualified written requests.

II.

The Watts maintain, in the alternative, that even if fees may be charged for

information requested pursuant to § 2605(e), Congress could not have intended to

permit exorbitant fees as this would undermine RESPA's consumer protection

objective. Thus, they argue, the statute includes an implicit requirement that the fees

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be reasonable and "a fact question remains" as to whether GMAC's fees were

reasonable. But the Watts are appealing a dismissal of their RESPA count, which

alleged that GMAC was required to provide information "without any charge"; there

was no claim that GMAC violated RESPA by charging an unreasonable fee. As the

Watts acknowledge on appeal, they raised the issue of reasonableness after judgment

had been entered against them and they had filed a motion for reconsideration. After

GMAC responded to that motion, the Watts filed a reply in which they contended for

the first time that even if Congress intended to permit a fee to be charged for

providing information in response to a qualified written request, the fee must be

reasonable, and that a fact question remained as to the reasonableness of GMAC's fee.

A party generally may not use a post-judgment motion to present a new theory or

argument that could have been tendered prior to judgment. See Miller v. Baker

Implement Co., 439 F.3d 407, 414 (8th Cir. 2006); Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Because this

issue was never properly raised in the district court and that court did not address it,

we decline to address it for the first time on appeal. Cf. von Kerssenbrock-Praschma

v. Saunders, 121 F.3d 373, 375-76 (8th Cir. 1997).

The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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