1 RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b) File Name: 15a0112p.06 

### UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

_________________

M YRON B ASS , Plaintiff ,

K

AREN M OBLEY ; L AWRENCE E VERETT R EED , Plaintiffs-Appellants ,

v

.

T OM L EATHERWOOD , Register of Deeds, et al., Defendants-Appellees

. ┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┘ No. 14-6321

Appeal from the United St ates District Court for the Western District of Tennessee at Memphis. No. 2:13-cv-02882—James D. Todd, District Judge. Decided and Filed: June 4, 2015 Before: COLE, Chief Judge; GILM AN and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

_________________ ORDER

_________________ SUTTON, Circuit Judge. Karen P. Mobley and Lawrence Everett Reed filed a pro se complaint on behalf of the Karen Mobley Gunn Estate and the Lawrence Everett Reed Estate, respectively. They contended that various fina ncial institutions fraudulently transferred real estate properties in Sh elby County, Tennessee, and failed to fo llow proper procedures for selling properties encumbered by outstanding liens. The district court dismissed the complaint on the ground that a nonattorney cannot appear in court on behalf of an artificia l entity such as an estate, even though Mobley and Reed claimed that they were the sole beneficiaries of their respective estates. On appeal, the financial inst itutions have again moved to dismiss the case for 

### >No. 14-6321 Bass, et al. v. Leatherwood, et al. Page 2

lack of jurisdiction because Mobley and R eed each signed the notice of appeal as the “Authorized Representative” of the estates. R. 82; see 28 U.S.C. § 1654.
Federal law allows parties to “plead a nd conduct their own cases personally or by counsel.” 28 U.S.C. § 1654. In 1997, the Second Circuit interpreted this language to impose a barrier on pro se litigants wishing to appear on be half of “another person or entity,” including a corporation, a partnership, a minor child, or “an estate . . . when the estate has beneficiaries or creditors other than the litigant.” Pridgen v. Andresen , 113 F.3d 391, 393 (2d Cir. 1997). The court reasoned that “appearance pro se denotes (in law latin) appearance for one’s self,” but
“when an estate has beneficiaries or creditors other than the administra trix or executrix, the action cannot be described as the litigant’s own.” Id. This court adopted the Second Circuit’s reasoning in Shepherd v. Wellman , 313 F.3d 963 (6th Cir. 2002), pr ohibiting a litigant from proceeding pro se “because he is not the sole beneficiary of the decedent’s estate.” Id. at 970 (citing Pridgen , 113 F.3d at 393).
Although the above cases imply that the sole be neficiary of an estate without creditors may represent the estate pro se, this court has never resolved the issue directly. We now hold that he or she may do so. “The rule against n on-lawyer representation ‘protects the rights of those before the court’ by preventing an ill-equi pped layperson from squandering the rights of the party he purports to represent.” Zanecki v. Health Alliance Plan of Detroit , 576 F. App’x 594, 595 (6th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (quoting Myers v. Loudoun Cnty. Pub. Sch ., 418 F.3d 395, 400 (4th Cir. 2005)). The purpose of the rule, then, is to protect th ird parties. But that purpose has no role to play when the only person aff ected by a nonattorney’s representation is the nonattorney herself.

The Second Circuit has reached the same c onclusion. “[T]he administrator and sole beneficiary of an estate with no cred itors,” it has concluded, “may appear pro se on behalf of the
estate.” Guest v. Hansen , 603 F.3d 15, 21 (2d Cir. 2010). Writing for the court, Judge Calabresi
reasoned:
It is only a legal fiction that assigns the sole beneficiary’s claims to a paper entity—the estate—rather than the be neficiary himself. Accordingly, pro se representation is consistent with our jurisprudence both on the right to selfrepresentation and on the pr ohibition of appearances by non-attorneys on behalfNo. 14-6321 Bass, et al. v. Leatherwood, et al. Page 3

of others. Because the administrator is the only party affected by the disposition of the suit, he is, in fact , appearing solely on his own behalf. This being so, thedangers that accompany lay lawyering are outweighed by the right to selfrepresentation . . . .

Id. In this case, the appellants have stipulated that they are the sole beneficiaries of their respective estates and that their estates lack creditors. R. 66 ¶ 3. The appellees have not contested either point. Although the record does not re veal why the appella nts are litigating on
behalf of estates and not on beha lf of themselves as individuals , § 1654 does not bar this appeal.
The appellees insist that we have misread Shepherd , which in their view held that nonattorneys may not represent any artificial entities, including estates in which the pro se litigants are the sole beneficiaries. The district court read the case the same way. See R. 64 at 10–11. It is true that, u nder longstanding tradition, “a corporation can only appear by attorney,” Osborn v. Bank of U.S. , 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 738, 829 (1824) (emphasis added), perhaps because by definition another person—natu ral or artificial—is involved, see Trustees of Dartmouth Coll.
v. Woodward , 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 518, 636–37 (1819); United States v. 9.19 Acres of Land , 416 F.2d 1244, 1245 (6th Cir. 1969). But we have never extend ed the logic of this rule to estates. In Shepherd and similar cases we held only that § 1 654 “does not permit plaintiffs to appear pro se where interests other than their own are at stak e,” 313 F.3d at 970—a situation distinct from the
one here.
For these reasons, we deny the appellees’ motion.

ENTERED BY ORDER OF THE COURT

_________________________________ Deborah S. Hunt, Clerk