United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted July 30, 2018*

Decided August 17, 2018

Before

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 18-1040

MICHAEL E. BARGO, JR.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Indiana, 

Hammond Division.

No. 2:16-cv-177

Joseph S. Van Bokkelen,

Judge.

O R D E R

Michael Bargo sued Porter County, its officials, and two Indiana judges alleging

a conspiracy to deprive him of his property without due process. The district court 

dismissed the suit on the ground that Bargo, who had filed for bankruptcy protection 

after the events giving rise to this lawsuit, no longer was the real party in interest to any 

claim in this suit. See FED. R. CIV. P. 17(a)(1). We affirm the judgment, though we 

modify it to reflect that some claims must be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, as barred 

 

* We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 18-1040 Page 2

by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See D.C. Ct. App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker 

v. Fid. Tr. Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923).

According to Bargo’s complaint, officials in Porter County and two Indiana

judges conspired fraudulently to seize and sell his real property. As he explains, an 

auditor and treasurer for the County refused to credit his 2011 and 2012 property tax 

payments, and a judge who presided over a subsequent tax-sale hearing “refused to 

acknowledge” that Bargo had paid his tax bills. Bargo responded by suing the county 

treasurer in small-claims court, seeking to recoup his property and tax payments. But 

according to Bargo, the presiding judge in that court dismissed his suit without 

providing him notice, a hearing, or an opportunity to respond, and the clerk of the 

small-claims court prevented him from filing an appeal when she removed his 

pleadings from the docket. The defendants further conspired, he asserted, by producing

a fraudulent tax bill, intimidating him, and refusing to turn over certain court 

documents. The defendants’ seizure and sale of Bargo’s property “ruined his credit so 

he had to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy.” In this suit, Bargo seeks compensatory damages 

measured by the value of his lost property.

The county defendants moved to dismiss Bargo’s complaint under Federal Rule 

of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. They argued that 

Bargo lacked “standing” to bring the claims in this suit because, under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 17(a)(1), he was not the real party in interest to those claims. Those 

claims had become part of Bargo’s bankruptcy estate when he petitioned for 

bankruptcy; thus only the bankruptcy trustee had the right to pursue them. Bargo’s

complaint, they added, also was barred under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because it 

sought review of two state-court judgments entered against him before he filed this suit. 

The district court dismissed Bargo’s complaint on the ground that he did not 

have “standing” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17(a)(1), a rule that requires 

suits to “be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest.” The court, taking 

judicial notice of Bargo’s bankruptcy proceedings, agreed with the county defendants 

that only the bankruptcy trustee could prosecute the claims in this suit. Nonetheless, the 

court invited Bargo under Rule 17(a)(3) to have the trustee, as the real party in interest, 

“ratify, join, or be substituted into the action.” Bargo tried to show that the bankruptcy 

trustee “abandoned” the bankruptcy estate’s interest in the claims, see 11 U.S.C. 

§ 554(a), when the trustee sent him an email forswearing any interest in the litigation.

But the court concluded that none of the statutory requirements for abandonment had 

been met and dismissed the suit.
No. 18-1040 Page 3

On appeal Bargo maintains that his case should not have been dismissed,

because he is the real party in interest. This prompts us to begin with a correction. To 

the extent that the district court based its dismissal on Rule 17’s real-party-in-interest 

requirement, that ruling was not jurisdictional. Rule 17 does not limit the subject-matter 

jurisdiction of federal courts. See Knopick v. Jayco, Inc., 895 F.3d 525, 529 (7th Cir. 2018) 

(citing Rawoof v. Texor Petroleum Co., 521 F.3d 750, 756–57 (7th Cir. 2008)); Norris v. 

Causey, 869 F.3d 360, 366–67 (5th Cir. 2017). Although we treat the real-party-in-interest 

requirement similarly to the rule that bars litigants from asserting the legal rights of 

others, G & S Holdings LLC v. Cont'l Cas. Co., 697 F.3d 534, 540–41 (7th Cir. 2012), rules of 

this genre do not deprive courts of subject-matter jurisdiction; they are flexible rules for 

deciding when a case should not go forward. See United States v. Windsor, 570 U.S. 744, 

757 (2013); Doermer v. Callen, 847 F.3d 522, 526–27 n.1 (7th Cir. 2017); see also RK Co. v. 

See, 622 F.3d 846, 851–52 (7th Cir. 2010) (distinguishing Rule 17 and prudential-standing 

doctrine). 

The defendants, for their part, continue to assert that some of Bargo’s claims are 

jurisdictionally barred by Rooker-Feldman because they seek review of state-court 

judgments. Indeed, jurisdiction to review state-court judgments is vested exclusively in 

the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 1257; Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521, 531–32 (2011). 

Under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, federal courts other than the Supreme Court must

dismiss a party’s claims asserting injuries from a judgment that a state court issued 

against the party before the federal suit. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 

544 U.S. 280, 284 (2005). Bargo attacked the state-court judgments ordering the sale of 

his property and denying him relief from that sale when he asked the district court to

order the defendants to compensate him for their role in the improper sale of his 

property.

As for Bargo’s claims that are not barred by Rooker-Feldman, they were properly 

dismissed under Rule 17. Bargo’s complaint includes claims for conspiracy, fraud, and 

intimidation, all of which attack not the state-court judgment but the unlawful conduct 

that led the state courts to rule against him. See Iqbal v. Patel, 780 F.3d 728, 729–31 

(7th Cir. 2015); Jones v. Brennan, 465 F.3d 304, 305 (7th Cir. 2006). These claims were 

properly dismissed under Rule 17(a)(1), however, because the bankruptcy trustee, not

Bargo, was the real party in interest. These claims arose before Bargo filed for 

bankruptcy, and thus they are part of the bankruptcy estate and may be prosecuted 

only by the bankruptcy trustee. See 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1); Biesek v. Soo Line R.R. Co., 

440 F.3d 410, 413 (7th Cir. 2006); In re Polis, 217 F.3d 899, 902 (7th Cir. 2000). 
No. 18-1040 Page 4

Bargo also reiterates that the bankruptcy estate’s “abandonment” of any interest 

in this suit is reflected in the email he received from the bankruptcy trustee. But the

bankruptcy statute requires more to establish abandonment: a trustee must provide

notice to Bargo’s creditors and the opportunity for a hearing before an abandonment 

will occur. See 11 U.S.C. § 554(a); Biesek, 440 F.3d at 411.

Lastly, Bargo says that the district judge should have recused himself because he 

worked from 1969 to 1972 in the Indiana Attorney General’s Office, which is a party to 

this appeal. But this contention is frivolous, even if we construe it as an argument under

28 U.S.C. § 455(a), which requires judges to disqualify themselves from any proceeding 

in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. “Our judicial system would 

hardly function if judges were potentially obliged to disqualify themselves” in every 

case involving a former employers, without more, let alone employers from 40 years 

ago. Nicholson v. City of Peoria, 860 F.3d 520, 525 n.6 (7th Cir. 2017), cert denied, 138 S. Ct. 

981 (2018). 

The district court’s judgment is modified to reflect that Bargo’s claims alleging an 

injury from the outcomes of the tax sale and small-claims case are dismissed for lack of 

jurisdiction. As modified, the judgment is 

AFFIRMED.