[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-11806

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

GREGORY C. PRICE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

LAKEVIEW LOAN SERVICING, LLC, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cv-00655-JES-MRM

____________________

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 1 of 9
2 Opinion of the Court 21-11806

Before WILSON, JORDAN, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Gregory C. Price, proceeding pro se, appeals the district 

court’s dismissal of his amended complaint alleging fraud, breach 

of contract, and other claims related to his mortgage debt. Mr. 

Price alleged that a mortgage and note provided by Lakeview Loan 

Servicing, LLC, which recorded a mortgage debt owed by Mr. 

Price, were fraudulent. He also alleged that Lakeview agreed to 

have the debt paid off through a “credit agreement” from him, 

which it allegedly accepted by failing to return the “agreement” to 

him. The district court dismissed all of Mr. Price’s claims for failure 

to state a claim upon which relief can be granted and it also dismissed the counts based on Mr. Price’s alleged “credit agreement”

as frivolous. On appeal, Mr. Price argues that the dismissal of his 

claims was improper and violated his Seventh Amendment right to 

a jury trial. We disagree and affirm.

I 

Because we write for the parties and assume their familiarity 

with the record, we set out only what is necessary to explain our 

decision. 

On August 29, 2013, Mr. Price executed a promissory note

for $142,348.00 to secure a mortgage for real property located in 

Englewood, Florida. The mortgage was given to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (“MERS”), which recorded it with 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 2 of 9
21-11806 Opinion of the Court 3

the clerk of court in Charlotte County, Florida. The servicing 

rights for the mortgage were subsequently assigned to Lakeview 

Loan Servicing, LLC. 

Mr. Price alleges that he saw on the MERS database that his 

mortgage was “given” to MERS, that this “separate[ed]” the mortgage and the note, and that this “bifurcation” makes both the mortgage and note fraudulent. After suspecting “anomalies” with the 

mortgage and note, Mr. Price requested that Lakeview provide the 

“QWR validity report of the mortgage and NOTE” with original 

blue-ink signatures, but Lakeview never did. Because Lakeview 

never provided these documents, Mr. Price claims in Count I of his 

complaint that Lakeview is fraudulently attempting to collect an 

unverifiable mortgage debt. 

In addition, Mr. Price alleges that he issued to Lakeview a 

self-generated “credit agreement” under which his original mortgage debt would become void and be replaced by a one-time payment of $1,250.00, which Lakeview could pick up at Mr. Price’s 

home. The credit agreement was issued by Mr. Price as a “Licensed, Private Banker” and was signed by “Gregory C. Price: (father, son, holy ghost).” Mr. Price argues that he has the authority 

to issue this credit agreement under the “vapor money” theory,

which goes something like this: the United States became a bankrupt entity when it went off the gold standard in 1933 and, because 

the country then backed its currency through the value of its citizens’ private property, private citizens can create new money with 

their signature as creditors of the bankrupt system. Because Mr. 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 3 of 9
4 Opinion of the Court 21-11806

Price left the self-generated “credit agreement” in Lakeview’s possession, he alleges that Lakeview accepted the agreement as payment. His remaining claims are predicated on Lakeview’s continued efforts to collect the mortgage debt after “accepting” this credit 

agreement and include breach of contract (Count II), a violation of 

the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act 

(Count III), “lack of jurisdiction to collect as holder in due course” 

(Count IV), financial discrimination (Count V), and “other crimes” 

(Count VI). 

II 

We review a grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state 

a viable claim de novo, accepting the factual allegations in the complaint as true and construing them in the light most favorable to 

the plaintiff. See Spain v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 363 

F.3d 1183, 1187 (11th Cir. 2004). Federal courts also construe pro 

se litigants’ filings liberally. See Alba v. Montford, 517 F.3d 1249, 

1252 (11th Cir. 2008). But “this leniency does not give a court license to serve as de facto counsel for a party, or to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading in order to sustain an action.” GJR Invs., 

Inc. v. Cnty. Of Escambia, 132 F.3d 1359, 1369 (11th Cir. 1998) (citations omitted), overruled on other grounds by Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 

556 U.S. 662 (2009).

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require only a short 

and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). This short and plain statement must give the defendant fair notice of what the claim is and 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 4 of 9
21-11806 Opinion of the Court 5

the grounds upon which it rests. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 

U.S. 544, 555 (2007). “A pleading that offers labels and conclusions 

or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will 

not do.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotation 

marks omitted). To survive dismissal, a complaint must contain 

enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. 

See id. A claim is facially plausible when the court can “draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct 

alleged.” See id. 

When a plaintiff alleges fraud in federal court, Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 9(b) requires that he allege “(1) the precise statements, documents, or misrepresentations made; (2) the time, 

place, and person responsible for the statement; (3) the content and 

manner in which these statements misled [him]; and (4) what the 

defendant[] gained by the alleged fraud.” Brooks v. Blue Cross & 

Blue Shield of Fla., Inc., 116 F.3d 1364, 1380–81 (11th Cir. 1997). 

Here, Mr. Price makes no such allegations. He questions the 

“physical unity” of the mortgage and note and believes that Lakeview’s copies may be “counterfeit,” but he does not allege that the 

assignment to Lakeview was improper or that multiple creditors 

are attempting to collect the same debt. 

Under Florida law, a mortgage and note should be read together, but they are still separate instruments. SeeWVMF Funding 

v. Palmero, 320 So. 3d 689, 694 (Fla. 2021). The promissory note 

“is the operative instrument in a mortgage loan transaction” representing the terms of payment, while the mortgage “secures” that 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 5 of 9
6 Opinion of the Court 21-11806

payment in the event of default. See id. (citing HSBC Bank USA, 

N.A. v. Perez, 165 So. 3d 696, 699 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015)). In other 

words, the “bifurcat[ed]” nature of a note and mortgage is par for 

the course and not the basis for a fraud claim. 

Moreover, Mr. Price does not explain how Lakeview’s failure to send him original, “blue-ink” versions of his mortgage and 

promissory note defrauded him. Under Florida law, a party seeking to enforce a negotiable instrument such as a promissory note 

must produce an original copy of the instrument at trial. See Heller 

v. Bank of Am., NA, 209 So. 3d 641, 644 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017). But 

Mr. Price never explains how Lakeview’s failure to do so here “misled” him or conveyed some benefit to Lakeview such that he was 

defrauded. See Brooks, 116 F.3d at 1380. We therefore affirm the 

dismissal of Count I.1 

III 

1 Mr. Price has also filed a motion to supplement the record with material not 

presented to the district court. Although we have the equitable power to do 

so, we rarely supplement the record with material not before the district court. 

See Schwartz v. Million Air, Inc., 341 F.3d 1220, 1225 n.4 (11th Cir. 2003). We

consider whether (1) supplementation would establish beyond any doubt the 

proper resolution of the pending issue; (2) remanding for the district court to 

consider the additional material would be contrary to the interests of justice 

and the efficient use of judicial resources; and (3) the opposing party has objected to supplementation. See Ross v. Kemp, 785 F.2d 1467, 1475 (11th Cir. 

1986). Though Lakeview has not opposed Mr. Price’s motion, we find that

supplementation would not aid the resolution of this case and would be contrary to the efficient use of judicial resources.

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 6 of 9
21-11806 Opinion of the Court 7

We review the dismissal of a claim as frivolous for abuse of 

discretion. See Bilal v. Driver, 251 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2001). 

A claim is frivolous if it lacks an arguable basis in law or fact. See

Bingham v. Thomas, 654 F.3d 1171, 1175 (11th Cir. 2011).

We find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s dismissal of Counts II through VI as frivolous because they are all based 

on the alleged “credit agreement” Mr. Price made pursuant to the

“vapor money” theory. This theory is nonsensical and fundamentally misunderstands how negotiable instruments work. Claims 

founded on it are routinely dismissed by federal courts as frivolous. 

See, e.g., Allah-Bey v. Roberts, 668 F. App’x 419, 420 (3d Cir. 2016) 

(affirming the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint 

where his theory was “identical to the ‘vapor money’ legal theory 

that numerous federal courts have rejected as frivolous”); In re 

Ward, 583 B.R. 558, 572 (Bankr. S.D. Ga. 2018) (declining to issue 

a declaratory judgment based on the “vapor money” theory and 

noting that “every federal court that has considered this theory has 

rejected it”); Tonea v. Bank of Am., N.A., 6 F. Supp. 3d 1331, 1344 

(N.D. Ga. 2014) (“Courts in this district have routinely rejected the 

‘vapor money’ theory as frivolous.”); Gallant v. Deutsche Bank 

Nat. Tr. Co., 766 F. Supp. 2d 714, 722 (W.D. Va. 2011) (noting that 

courts have “uniformly rejected” claims based on the “vapor 

money” theory); McLaughlin v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 726 F. Supp. 2d 

201, 209 (D. Conn. 2010) (rejecting fraud and statutory claims based 

on the “vapor money” theory). The district court did not abuse its 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 7 of 9
8 Opinion of the Court 21-11806

discretion in dismissing as frivolous Mr. Price’s claims founded on 

this theory. 

IV 

There are many other reasons to affirm the district court’s 

thorough order of dismissal. For example, the district court 

properly held that Count VI was improperly pled as it lumped multiple claims together in a single count. See Weiland v. Palm Beach 

Cnty. Sheriff’s Office, 792 F.3d 1313, 1323 (11th Cir. 2015) (failing 

to separate causes of action into different counts fails to give the 

defendant “adequate notice of the claims against [it] and the 

grounds upon which each claim rests” and warrants dismissal). In 

addition, each of Mr. Price’s counts fails to state a claim under Rule 

12(b)(6) for the reasons explained in the district court’s opinion. 

And on top of all this—though we have elected to affirm the 

district court’s judgment on its merits—Mr. Price has abandoned 

any challenge to the district court’s dismissal of his complaint as 

frivolous or for failure to state a viable claim because he never

made any legal or factual arguments addressing the district court’s 

order on appeal. Mr. Price lists critiques of the opinion in his statement of issues, but his arguments discuss nothing besides the “vapor money” theory. Issues not briefed on appeal are, of course, 

deemed abandoned. See Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 

(11th Cir. 2008). Because Mr. Price makes only “passing references” to his other arguments—those that do not involve the “vapor money” theory—and raises them in “a perfunctory manner 

without supporting arguments and authority,” he has abandoned 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 8 of 9
21-11806 Opinion of the Court 9

them. See Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 

(11th Cir. 2014). 

IV 

For all these reasons, we affirm the district court’s dismissal 

of Mr. Price’s complaint with prejudice.

AFFIRMED. 

USCA11 Case: 21-11806 Date Filed: 03/28/2022 Page: 9 of 9