UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-1465

CLASSIE REELS CURLEY,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

ADAMS CREEK ASSOCIATES; BILLIE DEAN BROWN, As General 

Partner for Adams Creek Associates; GEORGE H. ELLINWOOD,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of North Carolina, at Greenville. Malcolm J. Howard, 

Senior District Judge. (4:08-cv-00021-H)

Submitted: December 6, 2010 Decided: January 28, 2011

Before DUNCAN, DAVIS, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

Larry S. Height, LAW OFFICE OF LARRY S. HEIGHT, Raleigh, North 

Carolina, for Appellant. L. Lamar Armstrong, Jr., ARMSTRONG & 

ARMSTRONG, P.A., Smithfield, North Carolina, for Appellees.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Classie Reels Curley appeals the district court’s 

order dismissing her claims to quiet title on a parcel of 

waterfront property in North Carolina and granting summary 

judgment in favor of Appellee Adams Creek Associates (“Adams 

Creek”) on Curley’s claim that she is the owner of the property 

through adverse possession. The district court dismissed 

Curley’s first two claims for lack of subject matter 

jurisdiction and concluded that with respect to her adverse 

possession claim, she had not satisfied the elements pursuant to 

North Carolina law. We affirm.

I. Jurisdiction

We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion 

to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Philips v. Pitt 

Cnty. Mem’l Hosp., 572 F.3d 176, 179-80 (4th Cir. 2009). To 

survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint’s “[f]actual 

allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the 

speculative level” and have enough facts to state a claim to 

relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atl. Corp. v. 

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555-56 (2007). Generally, when ruling on 

a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a judge must accept as true all of the 

factual allegations contained in the complaint. Erickson v. 

Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93-94 (2007).
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The Rooker-Feldman*

The doctrine disallows a federal court from reviewing 

not only claims actually presented to a state court, but also 

constitutional claims that derive from the state court judgment, 

“as when success on the federal claim depends upon a 

determination that the state court wrongly decided the issues 

before it.” Plyler v. Moore, 129 F.3d 728, 731 (4th Cir. 1997) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, “a party losing in 

state court is barred from seeking what in substance would be 

appellate review of the state judgment in a United States 

district court, based on the losing party’s claim that the state 

judgment itself violates the loser’s federal rights.” 

abstention doctrine establishes 

that a federal district court lacks jurisdiction over a 

litigant’s challenge to a state court decision, including 

allegations that the state court’s action was unconstitutional. 

See Feldman, 460 U.S. at 476, 482-83 & n.16; Rooker, 263 U.S. at 

415-16. This jurisdictional bar includes claims that are 

“inextricably intertwined” with a state court judgment and 

precludes a district court from reviewing decisions of any level 

of state court. Jordahl v. Democratic Party of Va., 122 F.3d 

192, 199 (4th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

 * District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 

462 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923).
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Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06 (1994). The 

doctrine is confined to “cases brought by state-court losers 

complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered 

before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting 

district court review and rejection of those judgments.” Exxon 

Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 284 

(2005). 

Here, Curley asked the district court to invalidate a 

proceeding brought to register a parcel of disputed property 

pursuant to North Carolina’s Torrens Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. 

§ 43-1, et seq. (West 2009). She claimed that both the Torrens 

Act and her due process rights were violated when the court 

proceeded to dispose of the property without notice to her. 

After reviewing the record, we conclude that Curley’s claims

fall squarely within the ambit of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, 

as she is “seeking what in substance would be appellate review 

of the state judgment.” See De Grandy, 512 U.S. at 1005-06.

II. Adverse Possession

Curley next claims error in the district court’s 

decision granting summary judgment to Adams Creek on her adverse 

possession claim. We review a district court’s order granting 

summary judgment de novo, drawing reasonable inferences in the 

light most favorable to the non-moving party. Hooven-Lewis v. 
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Caldera, 249 F.3d 259, 265 (4th Cir. 2001). Summary judgment 

may be granted only when “there is no genuine issue as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter 

of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 

477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986).

Again, we have reviewed the record and conclude the 

district court committed no error. Curley only makes vague, 

unsubstantiated, and self-serving allegations that she has 

possessed the property continuously for the prescriptive period. 

The record is clear that she lives in Pennsylvania, and has done 

so for many years. Her claims that she attends reunions at the 

disputed property and allows her nephews to live there as 

tenants at will lack support in the record, even if they were 

legally sufficient to satisfy North Carolina’s elements of 

adverse possession.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the 

court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED