United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 12-2364

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Norbert A. Kraus; Claire J. Fox-Krause; William G. Bedard; 

John Murphy; Janet Murphy; Ted J. Theis; and Shannon K. Theis

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiffs - Appellants

v.

CitiMortgage, Inc.; Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.; 

MERSCORP, Inc.; Usset, Weingarden, and Liebo, P.L.L.P.

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellees

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 Appeal from United States District Court 

for the District of Minnesota - Minneapolis

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 Submitted: May 13, 2013

 Filed: June 10, 2013

[Unpublished]

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Before WOLLMAN, MURPHY, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Appellants are seven homeowners (the Homeowners) who filed suit against

CitiMortgage, Inc.; Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.; and

MERSCORP, Inc. (the Lenders/Servicers) for unlawfully foreclosing or attempting
to foreclose on their home mortgages. The Homeowners also filed suit against Usset,

Weingarden, and Liebo, P.L.L.P. (the Law Firm), which they claim assisted with

some of the foreclosures. The district court dismissed the Homeowners’ complaint 1

for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted and denied leave to amend. 

We affirm.

The Homeownersfirst challenge the district court’s subject matter jurisdiction,

contending that diversity of citizenship was lacking because the Law Firm was not

fraudulently joined. We have recently rejected identical arguments contesting the

assertion of fraudulent joinder, concluding that the claims alleged had no reasonable

basis in law and fact under Minnesota law. See Dunbar v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.,

709 F.3d 1254, 1256 (8th Cir. 2013); Karnatcheva v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.,

704 F.3d 545, 546 (8th Cir. 2013); Murphy v. Aurora Loan Servs., LLC, 699 F.3d

1027, 1031-32 (8th Cir. 2012). Because the claims asserted against the Law Firm in

this case similarly lack a reasonable basis in law and fact, we conclude that there was

diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a) and that the district court did not err

in dismissing those claims.

We next address the claims against the Lenders/Servicers. Although the

Homeowners asserted twelve claims against the Lenders/Servicers, they have

abandoned on appeal all but four—quiet title, slander of title, conversion, and breach

of fiduciary duty. We affirm the dismissal of the quiet title claim on the basis of our

recent dismissal of a virtually identical claimin Jerde v. JPMorganChase Bank, N.A.,

502 F. App’x 616, 617 (8th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). See also Dunbar, 709 F.3d at

1257 (affirming the dismissal of a similar quiet title claim that relied in part on the

same seven grounds asserted in this case). We affirm the dismissal of the slander of

title claim as well, because like the slander of title claim rejected in Dunbar, the 

The Honorable Donovan W. Frank, United States District Judge for the

1

District of Minnesota.

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Homeownersin this case “have failed to plead factual content that‘permit[s] the court

to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct.’” Dunbar, 709 F.3d at 1258

(alteration in original) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009)).

We likewise affirm the district court’s dismissal of the Homeowners’

conversion and breach of fiduciary duty claims, because each claim relies upon the

“show-me-the-note” theory rejected by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Jackson v.

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., 770 N.W.2d 487 (Minn. 2009). The

conversion claim is premised on the allegation that the Lenders/Servicers “were not

entitled to enforce the Original Notes and were not entitled to receive payments on

the notes from the Plaintiffs.” Compl. ¶ 76. As we concluded in Murphy, this claim

is nothing more than a variation of a show-me-the-note claim. See Murphy, 699 F.3d

at 1031. We conclude that the breach of fiduciary duty claim suffers from the same

defect, in that the only non-conclusory fact alleged in support thereof is that the

Lenders/Servicers failed to disclose “information regarding the entity that held the

promissorynotes and could enforce the mortgagessecuring Plaintiff’s [sic] property.” 

Compl. ¶ 92. Because these claims are merely show-me-the-note claims in different

dress, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of both claims.

The Homeowners’ also appeal from the district court’s denial of their oral

motion to amend the complaint, arguing that the district court failed to rule on the

motion and that justice requires that they be granted leave to amend. The district

court’s order states: “Having reviewed Plaintiffs’ proposed Amended Complaint, the

Court concludes that Plaintiffs cannot allege a set of facts that would survive a

motion to dismiss. Accordingly, the Court denies Plaintiffs’ request to amend[.]” D.

Ct. Order of May 4, 2012, at 8-9 n.3. Because the district court clearly addressed the 

Homeowners’ request for leave to amend, their first argument is without merit. To

the extent the Homeowners’ contend that they should have been granted leave to

amend because justice so requires, they have failed to demonstrate that the district

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court erred by concluding that the proposed amendment would be futile. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s denial of leave to amend. 

The judgment is affirmed. 

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