NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

File Name: 18a0316n.06

No. 17-1941

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

WEST CONGRESS STREET PARTNERS, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

RIVERTOWN DEVELOPMENT, LLC; 

RIVERTOWN HOLDINGS, LLC; RIVERTOWN 

DEVELOPMENT GROUP, LLC; MARK RIETH; 

CITY OF DETROIT; IVAN LUCKEY; JUSTIN 

TAITE; AUSTIN HUNTER; DENNIS SMITH; 

RANDY MCGHEE; AUSTON CARR; WILLIE 

ROBINSON; WAYNE COUNTY; JOHN DOE of 

the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department,

Defendants-Appellees.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT 

COURT FOR THE EASTERN 

DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

Before: GIBBONS, THAPAR, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.

LARSEN, Circuit Judge. This is a landlord-tenant dispute concerning a Detroit property 

that West Congress Street Partners, LLC (“West Congress”), leased from Rivertown Development, 

LLC (“Rivertown”). Following a bitterly contested eviction action in state court, West Congress

sued its former landlord in federal court. West Congress alleged that Rivertown’s pursuit of the 

eviction breached the parties’ settlement agreement in the state-court proceedings, constituted 

racial discrimination, and was the product of a conspiracy between Rivertown and various local 

officials. The district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. We AFFIRM.
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I.

West Congress operated a bar on a property it leased from Rivertown. Without the latter’s 

permission, West Congress made alterations to the property and began using it as a cabaret in 

violation of the lease, Detroit zoning ordinances, and Michigan liquor laws. Rivertown eventually 

sued for possession in Wayne County Circuit Court, and West Congress brought counterclaims 

for, inter alia, retaliatory eviction.

After a bench trial, the state court awarded possession to Rivertown, expressly granting it 

the right to seek a writ of eviction. The court subsequently ordered “that any and all proceedings 

to enforce the Corrected Judgment of Possession in this matter be stayed subject to [West 

Congress] perfecting its appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals.” In March 2015, that court 

concluded it lacked jurisdiction because none of the trial court’s orders finally disposed of West 

Congress’s counterclaims, and accordingly dismissed West Congress’s motion for appeal as of 

right. The court of appeals instructed West Congress to file a delayed application for leave to 

appeal if it desired review of those orders. West Congress did so on March 31, 2015.

Meanwhile, because West Congress was still in possession of the property and “continue[d] 

to operate as a cabaret in violation of the Lease, City of Detroit Zoning ordinances, and State 

Liquor Control Laws,” the state trial court appointed a receiver to operate West Congress’s 

business while the parties continued to litigate their respective claims for money damages. The 

receiver doubled as the court’s appointed facilitator and, failing facilitation, as the “case evaluator” 

tasked with suggesting a settlement amount.1 See Mich. Ct. Rule 2.403.

 

1 Case evaluation is a Michigan method of alternative dispute resolution pursuant to which the

appointed case evaluator proposes an award to resolve the case. The court enters judgment “in 

accordance with the evaluation” if all parties accept the proposed award. Mich. Ct. Rule 2.403

(M)(1).
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On April 13, 2015, the receiver proposed the following case-evaluation award: “West 

Congress . . . shall receive the sum of One [Hundred] Twenty-Five Thousand ($125,000.00) 

Dollars from . . . Rivertown.” In the award’s “comments” section, the receiver added: “West 

Congress . . . shall vacate the premises within 90 days of acceptance of the award by both parties.” 

In early May 2015, the parties agreed to the case-evaluation award.

But, as the district court put it, “[s]omething went awry.” On April 24, 2015, after the 

receiver had filed his case evaluation but before the parties had agreed to it, Rivertown sought an 

immediate eviction order. Rivertown alleged that West Congress had secretly operated the 

property as a cabaret on three occasions after the receiver filed the case-evaluation award, in 

violation of the court’s and the receiver’s outstanding operating conditions. Rivertown indicated 

that the Michigan Court of Appeals had dismissed or found defective all of West Congress’s

attempts at appeal, and as such the trial court’s stay of the judgment of possession was no longer 

effective, permitting enforcement. On May 15, 2015, the trial court issued an eviction order, and 

a court officer executed it the same day.

A number of Detroit police officers were present when the court officer served the eviction 

order at the bar. According to the Detroit police, they dispatched officers to the property after a 9-

1-1 call reported a large crowd at the scene of an eviction. West Congress acknowledges that there 

was a large crowd outside, due to a race in downtown Detroit. West Congress alleges that several 

unnamed Wayne County sheriff’s deputies assisted the officers, which Wayne County denies.

After the eviction, West Congress brought an emergency motion in state court to enforce 

the parties’ case-evaluation settlement and to hold Rivertown in contempt of court. West Congress

claimed that Rivertown had obtained the eviction order under false pretenses, as West Congress’s 

delayed application for leave to appeal, filed about six weeks before, remained pending in the 
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Michigan Court of Appeals. West Congress contended further that the eviction directly conflicted 

with the parties’ settlement agreement, which, on West Congress’s reading, allowed it to remain 

on the property for ninety days.

After a hearing, the state court enforced the settlement agreement. Specifically, it ordered 

Rivertown to return the property’s keys to the receiver and provided that West Congress did not 

have to vacate the property until August 2, 2015, ninety days after the parties had accepted the 

case-evaluation award. The receiver did not allow West Congress’s owner on the property by 

himself for the remainder of the ninety-day period and, on the court’s order, made the owner’s 

wife responsible for the keys. The court further ordered Rivertown to pay West Congress $125,000 

when West Congress moved out and ordered West Congress to dismiss its pending application for 

leave to appeal the judgment of possession in the state court of appeals. West Congress eventually 

moved out, the court discharged the receiver, and Rivertown paid its former tenant $125,000.

2

II.

Later that year, West Congress initiated the instant action in the Eastern District of 

Michigan, naming as defendants Rivertown, the Detroit Police Department, and an unnamed 

individual police officer. As relevant to this appeal, West Congress alleged that Rivertown had 

breached the parties’ settlement agreement by evicting West Congress and had conspired with the 

other defendants to do so, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1985 and 1986. West Congress also claimed 

that Rivertown had violated Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), Mich. Comp. 

 

2 The Michigan Court of Appeals denied West Congress’s delayed application for leave to appeal 

on October 2, 2015, “since, per [West Congress’s] representation to the Court, the matter has been 

settled.” Rivertown Dev. Grp. LLC v. W. Cong. St. Partners LLC, No. 326686 (Mich. Ct. App. 

Oct. 2, 2015) (order).
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Laws § 37.2502. The district court dismissed the complaint against Rivertown for failure to state 

a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

West Congress then amended its complaint to name seven Detroit police officers, who

West Congress claimed were present for the eviction, and added as defendants Wayne County and 

an unnamed sheriff’s deputy, who West Congress alleged had also attended the eviction. West 

Congress alleged that the City of Detroit, Wayne County, and the individual officers and deputy

(hereinafter “the public defendants”) had engaged in a conspiracy to effect a fraudulent eviction, 

in violation of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1985 and 1986, resulting in property damage and loss of earnings

before West Congress was allowed to return to the premises. The district court dismissed the 

complaint against the public defendants for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6). West 

Congress timely appealed, arguing that the district court had erred in dismissing its breach-ofcontract and ELCRA claims against Rivertown, as well as its conspiracy claims against the public 

defendants.

III.

Take the breach claim first. The case-evaluation award provided that West Congress “shall 

receive . . . $125,000.00” and “shall vacate the premises within 90 days of acceptance of the award 

by both parties.” By May 5, 2015, the parties had agreed to this award, and the state court deemed 

the case settled on May 6. On May 15, the court ordered the eviction, which Rivertown had been 

seeking for several weeks preceding the parties’ acceptance of the settlement.

In its emergency motion to undo the eviction, West Congress contended that the eviction 

contradicted the terms of the case-evaluation award. West Congress asked the court to enforce the 

settlement, return possession of the bar to West Congress, hold Rivertown in contempt, and award 
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West Congress “sanctions . . . for all costs and lost profits from the wrongful eviction.”3 West 

Congress specifically alleged that the eviction resulted in loss of earnings, as the bar was forcibly 

closed at what likely would have been a profitable time, and West Congress was forced to cancel 

and refund several private events.

West Congress secured some, but not all, of the relief it sought. The state court reversed 

the eviction. It ordered that West Congress have the benefit of the rest of the ninety-day period 

provided for in the settlement and that Rivertown pay the previously agreed-upon sum when West 

Congress moved out. The court did not hold Rivertown in contempt, however, nor award any kind 

of damages for the eviction’s effects on West Congress.

In this federal case, West Congress asserts the same claim: that the eviction before 

expiration of the ninety-day period violated the parties’ agreement and that West Congress is 

entitled to resulting damages, as well as interest, costs, and fees. But having made the same 

argument and the same request before the state trial court, West Congress cannot now relitigate its 

entitlement to damages for the same conduct. We give state-court judgments the same preclusive 

effect that the state’s courts would. 28 U.S.C. § 1738; Ohio ex rel. Boggs v. City of Cleveland, 

655 F.3d 516, 519 (6th Cir. 2011). In Michigan, a party is estopped from relitigating a question 

of fact essential to the judgment if that question was already litigated and determined in an earlier 

proceeding, provided that the same parties had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue and

there is mutuality of estoppel; that is, the party taking advantage of the earlier judgment would be 

 

3 West Congress also contended that Rivertown had misled the court in seeking the eviction, 

because Rivertown had represented that West Congress’s pending appeal of the judgment of 

possession had been resolved. West Congress argued that, because the appeal was in fact still 

pending, the eviction violated not only the terms of the parties’ settlement agreement but also the 

trial court’s outstanding stay of enforcement of the judgment of possession. In federal court, West 

Congress claims only breach of the settlement agreement.
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bound by it if the parties’ fortunes were reversed. Monat v. State Farm Ins. Co., 677 N.W.2d 843, 

845–47 (Mich. 2004).

Here, West Congress argued in state court that Rivertown’s conduct violated the settlement 

agreement. The state court apparently agreed because it enforced the settlement. West Congress

also sought damages for the violation, but the state court refused them. Michigan law precludes 

West Congress from recycling its earlier claim for violation of the settlement, as well as trying 

again to win damages for that violation. 4 The district court accordingly did not err in dismissing 

West Congress’s breach claim.5

 

4

In the district court and in this court, Rivertown has argued that the Rooker–Feldman doctrine 

precludes federal jurisdiction over this case. We disagree. The Rooker–Feldman doctrine 

concerns situations where plaintiffs “complain[] of an injury caused by the state-court judgment 

and seek[] review and rejection of that judgment.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 

544 U.S. 280, 291 (2005). On the other hand, where a plaintiff complains of “some other source 

of injury, such as a third party’s actions, then the plaintiff asserts an independent claim” that does 

not implicate Rooker–Feldman. McCormick v. Braverman, 451 F.3d 382, 392–93 (6th Cir. 2006). 

Here, like the plaintiff in McCormick, West Congress alleges injury from Rivertown’s actions in 

evicting West Congress just a week after it had contracted to settle the case. For claims like this, 

which assert a source of injury independent of the state court’s judgment itself, “the Supreme Court 

has instructed that preclusion law is the appropriate solution.” Id. at 392.

West Congress does not ask us to “overturn” the state court’s eviction order or any aspect of the 

court’s later reversal of that order and enforcement of the settlement agreement. Exxon Mobil, 

544 U.S. at 292. Certainly, the state court did not choose to award West Congress damages when 

the court enforced the agreement, but the fact that a plaintiff did not win everything it wanted in 

state court does not reassign the source of the injury from the defendant to the state-court judgment 

itself. See McCormick, 451 F.3d at 394 (“The fact that the state court chose not to remedy the 

injury does not transform the subsequent federal suit on the same matter into an appeal, forbidden 

by Rooker-Feldman, of the state-court judgment.” (quoting Hoblock v. Albany Cty. Bd. of 

Elections, 422 F.3d 77, 88 (2d Cir. 2005))). It is accordingly preclusion law, not an absence of 

federal jurisdiction, that dispatches West Congress’s claim.

5 Rivertown properly raised collateral estoppel as a defense, both before the district court and on 

appeal. See Smith v. Sushka, 117 F.3d 965, 969 (6th Cir. 1997). Although the district court did 

not dismiss the breach claim on preclusion grounds, “we ‘may affirm for any reason presented in 

the record.’” Clark v. United States, 764 F.3d 653, 660–61 (6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Loftis v. United 

Parcel Serv., Inc., 342 F.3d 509, 514 (6th Cir. 2003)).
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IV.

West Congress next contends that the district court erred in dismissing its state-law 

discrimination claim against Rivertown, as well as its federal conspiracy claims against the City 

of Detroit, Wayne County, and the individual police officers and sheriff’s deputy. We review de 

novo a district court’s ruling on a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. Kaminski v. Coulter, 865 F.3d 339, 

344 (6th Cir. 2017). While we accept the complaint’s allegations as true, id., “[t]o survive a motion 

to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to ‘state a claim to relief that is 

plausible on its face,’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (emphasis added) (quoting Bell 

Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). And while we draw all reasonable inferences 

in the plaintiff’s favor, Kaminski, 865 F.3d at 344, the plaintiff must plead “factual content that 

allows [us] to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct 

alleged,” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

Here, no plausible claim to relief emerges from West Congress’s complaint. It contains no 

factual content permitting a reasonable inference that Rivertown discriminated against West 

Congress on account of race, in violation of state law; or that local officials conspired to deprive 

West Congress of its rights, in violation of federal law.

A.

Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits race discrimination in real estate 

transactions. Mich. Comp. Laws § 37.2502(1). But West Congress alleges no facts that give rise 

to an inference of discrimination on the part of Rivertown. Indeed, all the complaint offers in the 

way of facts is that West Congress’s owner is black, his wife is white, and the court put the bar 

keys in the charge of the owner’s wife during the ninety-day period preceding moveout. To this 
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West Congress adds a conclusory statement to the effect that Rivertown schemed to end the lease 

on account of the owner’s race.

The state court and the receiver found, however, that even during the litigation of this case 

West Congress was altering the property and operating it as a cabaret without permission and in 

defiance of the court’s orders—claims West Congress does not dispute. And the receiver 

explained in his report to the court that West Congress’s owner’s wife had been made responsible 

for the keys “because of the difficult relationship between the parties.” There is no plausible claim 

of discrimination here, and the district court did not err in dismissing it.

B.

So too with West Congress’s federal conspiracy claims against the City of Detroit, Wayne 

County, and the individual police officers and sheriff’s deputy. To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1985, a plaintiff must allege (1) that a conspiracy existed; (2) for the purpose of depriving any 

person of the equal protection of or equal privileges and immunities under the laws; (3) that there 

was an act in furtherance of the conspiracy; and (4) that the act injured a person or deprived him 

of his rights. United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners of Am. v. Scott, 463 U.S. 825, 828–29 (1983). 

Where the wrongful act occurs, 42 U.S.C. § 1986 creates liability for those who, “having 

knowledge that any of [these] wrongs conspired to be done . . . are about to be committed,” and 

“having power to prevent or aid in preventing” them, do nothing.

“[W]e are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation,”

but that is all West Congress has given us. Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986). West 

Congress alleges that the public defendants participated in a “concerted effort” to deprive West 

Congress of its property through a fraudulent eviction. West Congress asserts that this “effort” 

was “part of a long and voluminous history of abuses and civil rights violations”—a “complex 
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conspiracy to evict an African-American Tenant and replace Plaintiff with a Caucasian-owned and 

operated bar/restaurant/brewery,” in which the defendants “played a substantial role.” According 

to West Congress, the public defendants had direct knowledge of the settlement agreement, but 

nonetheless “prepar[ed] and plann[ed] to enlist approximately thirty (30) officers of the court” to 

aid in the eviction on the same day the order was fraudulently obtained, “reveal[ing] that a 

concerted effort aided in the conspiracy to wrongfully evict and lock out Plaintiff.”

There is no factual content here sufficient to state with any plausibility the elements of 

42 U.S.C. §§ 1985 and 1986. West Congress offers “nothing more than the conclusory allegation 

that the defendants acted in concert and, without more, fail[s] to allege a sufficient factual basis to 

establish any sort of ‘meeting of the minds’ or to link any of the alleged conspirators in a 

conspiracy to deprive [it] of [its] civil rights.” Amadasu v. Christ Hosp., 514 F.3d 504, 507 (6th 

Cir. 2008). As the district court rightly observed, West Congress does not connect the individual 

officers and deputy to any particular conduct. Nor does West Congress link the asserted injury to 

any action or policy of Wayne County or the City of Detroit. See Smith v. City of Troy, 874 F.3d 

938, 946–47 (6th Cir. 2017). The district court did not err in dismissing the claims against the 

public defendants.

* * *

Because Michigan preclusion law bars West Congress’s first claim, and its second and 

third claims fail the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.