NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC, 

Plaintiff-counterdefendant-Appellee, 

 v. 

RIVER GLIDER AVENUE TRUST, 

Defendant-counter-claimantAppellant, 

 v. 

SAHARA SUNRISE HOMEOWNERS 

ASSOCIATION, 

Defendant-third-partyplaintiff, 

 v. 

ALESSI & KOENIG LLC, 

Third-party-defendant.

No. 19-15760 

D.C. No. 

2:15-cv-01597-MMD-NJK 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Nevada

Miranda M. Du, Chief District Judge, Presiding

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

FILED

JUL 13 2020

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

Submitted July 9, 2020**

Seattle, Washington

Before: HAWKINS, D.M. FISHER,***and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.

In this diversity quiet title action, the district court granted summary 

judgment for Plaintiff-Appellee Nationstar Mortgage LLC (Nationstar), voiding a

February 2012 non-judicial foreclosure sale to the extent that it extinguished 

Nationstar’s deed of trust encumbering the property at issue. The district court 

concluded that the Sahara Sunrise HOA’s (HOA) failure to mail a notice of default 

on homeowners’ assessments to MERS, the beneficiary of record in the deed of 

trust at the time, violated Nevada’s HOA foreclosure statutes, see SFR Invs. Pool 

1, LLC v. Bank of New York Mellon, 422 P.3d 1248, 1253 (Nev. 2018) (holding 

that Nev. Rev. Stat. § 116.31168 incorporates the notice requirements of Nev. Rev. 

Stat. § 107.090), and that the violation was prejudicial to the current deed of trust 

holder Nationstar. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, review the 

district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, see Fed. Home Loan Mortg. 

Corp. v. SFR Invs. Pool 1, LLC, 893 F.3d 1136, 1144 (9th Cir. 2018), and reverse

and remand. 

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

*** The Honorable D. Michael Fisher, United States Circuit Judge for the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting by designation.
3 

The Nevada Supreme Court has held that a deed of trust holder with 

constructive notice of an HOA assessment default is not prejudiced by an HOA’s 

failure to mail a notice of default to the deed of trust holder’s predecessor in 

interest. See W. Sunset 2050 Tr. v. Nationstar Mortg., 420 P.3d 1032, 1035 (Nev. 

2018). Without a showing of prejudice, the court in West Sunset refused to protect 

a deed of trust from being extinguished by an HOA foreclosure sale. Id. 

As in West Sunset, because Nationstar did not show that it was prejudiced by

the HOA’s failure to mail a notice of default to MERS, the HOA sale was not void 

on this ground. See id. The parties do not dispute that, although the HOA properly 

recorded the notice of default in December 2010, it failed to mail a notice of 

default to MERS. However, MERS assigned the deed of trust to Nationstar, 

through Nationstar’s predecessor Bank of America, in May 2011.

1 Accordingly, 

Nationstar had constructive notice of the default when it was assigned the deed of 

trust, irrespective of the HOA’s failure to mail MERS a notice of default five 

months earlier. See id.; see also SFR Invs. Pool 1, LLC v. First Horizon Home 

Loans, 409 P.3d 891, 893 (Nev. 2018) (“The very purpose of recording statutes is 

1 We note that MERS assigned the deed of trust to BAC Home Loans 

Servicing, LP (BAC) in May 2011. BAC merged into Bank of America, N.A. in 

July 2011. In November 2013, Bank of America assigned the deed of trust to 

Nationstar, who brought this quiet title action. For simplicity, herein we refer only 

to Nationstar, except where necessary to distinguish other parties in the chain of 

title.
4 

to impart notice to a subsequent purchaser.”). Pursuant to West Sunset, 

Nationstar’s constructive notice “dooms its claim that the defective notice 

invalidate[d] the HOA sale.” 420 P.3d at 1035. 

Nationstar argues that the HOA’s failure to send a notice to MERS was 

prejudicial, providing evidence that Bank of America often cured HOA assessment 

defaults upon receipt of a notice of default. But the HOA’s failure to notify MERS 

of the default did not affect Bank of America’s window of opportunity to cure the 

default. That period commenced when Bank of America, through BAC and with

constructive notice of the default, became the deed of trust holder in May 2011. 

Moreover, we note that it is undisputed that the HOA mailed the correct parties a 

notice of the foreclosure sale in July 2011, over six months before the sale

eventually took place. See 420 P.3d at 1035 (noting receipt of notice of 

foreclosure sale).

Nationstar also argues that U.S. Bank, N.A. v. Resources Group, LLC, 444 

P.3d 442, 447 (Nev. 2019) controls here. But Resources Group did not involve an

intervening assignment, so the deed of trust holder in that case had no constructive

notice of the HOA default at issue. Id. at 447 (distinguishing West Sunset, 420 

P.3d at 1035, where “the assignee of the original deed of trust beneficiary had 

constructive notice of the notice of default, and received timely notice of sale”).

Although the parties raise several additional arguments regarding the 
5 

extinguishment of Nationstar’s deed of trust, the district court explicitly limited its 

summary judgment ruling to the notice issue described above. Accordingly, we 

remand to allow the district court to address the remaining issues for the first 

time. See Shirk v. U.S. ex rel. Dep’t of Interior, 773 F.3d 999, 1007 (9th Cir. 2014) 

(“As a federal court of appeals, we must always be mindful that ‘we are a court of 

review, not first view.’” (quoting Maronyan v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., 

658 F.3d 1038, 1043 n. 4 (9th Cir. 2011))). 

REVERSED AND REMANDED.