Opinion ID: 6349703
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Samara’s Claim is Time Barred

Text: Samara’s claim for reformation is barred by the statute of limitations. Alabama law provides that “[a]ctions for the recovery of lands, tenements or hereditaments, or the possession thereof” must be “commenced within 10 years” from the date on which the cause of action arises. ALA. CODE § 6-2-33(2); see also Pinto Credit Union v. Brown, 535 So. 2d 139, 139 (Ala. 1988) (“The ten-year statute of limitations applicable to actions for the recovery of land applies as well to an action brought by a judgment creditor, to subject property to his creditor’s rights.” (cleaned up)). In our case, Davis executed and delivered the mortgage to the clerk of court in 2006. But Samara waited thirteen years—until 2019—to file this action. His claim is therefore untimely. The Alabama Supreme Court has already concluded that Section 6-2-33(2) applies to actions to reform mortgages. See Swan v. Magnusson, 418 So. 2d 844, 846 (Ala. 1982). In Swan, the plaintiff had obtained a $50,000 judgment against the defendants in a personal injury case. Id. at 845. The defendants later conveyed certain land they owned to avoid execution of the judgment. Id. When the plaintiff brought an action alleging fraudulent transfer, the parties presented the court with two competing statutes of limitations: The plaintiff relied on the ten-year statute of limitations for recovery of land, whereas the defendants pointed to the one-year statute of limitations for fraud. Id. at 846. USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 19 of 27 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 19 The court concluded that the ten-year limit applied: “In determining which statute of limitations should apply, an examination of Swan’s complaint readily disclose[d] that § 6-2-33 applies.” Id. The court observed that the complaint specifically cited a “statutory [provision] affording remedies to creditors.” Id. “The tenyear statute of limitations applicable to actions for the recovery of lands applies as well to an action brought by a judgment creditor, involving a fraudulent conveyance of property by a debtor, to subject property to his creditor’s rights.” Id. So too here. In his complaint, Samara specifically blockquoted from, and cited to, the statutory cause of action for reformation. The Alabama Supreme Court has already said that the tenyear statute of limitation in § 6-2-33 applies to actions brought under § 35-4-153. Therefore, the ten-year period for reformation applies to Samara’s claims. Resisting this result, Samara offers two arguments—both unavailing. First, he says that the statute of limitations began to run in 2012 (when the bankruptcy trustee assigned the mortgage to him), not in 2006 (when Davis filed the mortgage with the clerk of court). Second, he insists that ours isn’t a reformation case at all; instead, he now maintains, he’s brought an action to enforce a judicial decree. We address (and reject) each argument in turn. First, as a threshold matter, Samara has cited no authority for the proposition that a cause of action accrues only when the mortgage is assigned—rather than when it’s filed with the court. For that reason alone, the argument is waived. See Hamilton v. USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 20 of 27 20 Opinion of the Court 20-14629 Southland Christian Sch., Inc., 680 F.3d 1316, 1319 (11th Cir. 2012) (“A passing reference to an issue in a brief is not enough, and the failure to make arguments and cite authorities in support of an issue waives it.”). Waiver aside, though, the argument is meritless. That’s because Samara’s position is in nagging tension with what the Alabama Supreme Court has said on similar facts. In Scofield v. Cheatham, 485 So. 2d 722 (Ala. 1986), the court was asked to determine whether, under § 6-2-33(2)—the same statute of limitations at issue here—a claim premised on a breach of warranty in a deed accrued (1) when the deed was executed and delivered to the parents of the plaintiff or (2) when the deed was transferred to the plaintiff six years later. Id. at 723. The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument—which Samara restates here—that the claim accrued “when the breach actually became known to him.” Id. Instead, the court held, the cause of action accrued “upon execution and delivery of the deed.” Id. That conclusion is dispositive here: Samara’s claim—which is based on the defective mortgage—accrued when the mortgage was executed and delivered to the court for Samara’s benefit (just like the claim in Scofield accrued when the deed was delivered to the plaintiff’s parents for the plaintiff’s benefit). The timing of Samara’s discovery of the error is just irrelevant. But here’s the thing: Even if Samara’s knowledge were necessary to trigger the statute of limitations, we’d still reject his claim because he unquestionably knew about the mortgage in 2006. Recall that, on March 15, 2006, Davis filed a status report on the USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 21 of 27 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 21 district court’s public docket, which explained that “[t]he original mortgage required to be filed with the clerk of court has been delivered to and accepted by the clerk.” A few days later, Samara filed a response to that status report. More than that, on September 24, 2008—still well within our ten-year window—Samara’s lawyer filed a motion “request[ing] the Court to maintain the mortgage interest on real estate with the Clerk of the Court,” so that “the Trustee [could] join in the pleadings of this Court” and “take possession of [the mortgage] for the benefit of the creditors.” Samara, in other words, knew all about the mortgage and its contents—as the papers he filed, which directly referred to that mortgage, make plain. Second, Samara contends that his case against Davis isn’t a reformation action at all, but rather an action to enforce a prior decree. He thus argues that the applicable statute of limitations is twenty years, not ten. See ALA. CODE § 6-2-32 (“Within 20 years, actions upon a judgment or decree of any court of this state, of the United States, or of any state or territory of the United States must be commenced.”). For a few reasons, we reject Samara’s attempt to recharacterize his claim. One, as we noted before, Samara (in his complaint) block-quoted from, and relied on, the statutory cause of action for reformation. Here’s that passage: Under Alabama law, when, through fraud, or a mu- tual mistake of the parties, or a mistake of one party which the other at the time knew or suspected, a USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 22 of 27 22 Opinion of the Court 20-14629 deed, mortgage, or other conveyance does not truly express the intention of the parties, it may be revised by a court on the application of the party aggrieved so as to express that intention, insofar as this can be done without prejudice to rights acquired by third persons in good faith and for value. Ala. Code § 35-4- 153. It would be puzzling, indeed, for Samara to have quoted this language if he, in fact, had sought to enforce a judgment rather than to reform a mortgage. As in Swan, the complaint was clear about the relief he was seeking—and he’s stuck with those allegations now. Two, even if his complaint had sought enforcement, Samara never tells us which judgment or decree we should be enforcing. As our factual recitation made clear, the parties have sued each other several times over the years, and the various judges who have presided over those trials have entered hundreds of orders. Since his lawsuit never mentions enforcement, he never actually told the district court—or us—which of these many orders his complaint hoped to enforce. Three, even if none of this were true, we still think Samara’s (alleged) enforcement action would fail. Why? Because there doesn’t seem to be anything left to enforce—even if we were to start guessing at Samara’s intentions. Looking back at the original case docket, we can think of two possible orders Samara might have wanted to enforce. One said: “Upon the filing of appraisals USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 23 of 27 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 23 satisfactory to the court showing the property to be of a value of at least one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000.00) . . . the constructive trust imposed by the court shall be dissolved.” There’s simply nothing to enforce here. Maybe Samara is suggesting that this order should be enforced by not dissolving the constructive trust—presumably because, in his view, the conditions precedent to the dissolution of that trust haven’t been satisfied. But remember that we vacated that constructive trust fifteen years ago, citing serious due-process concerns. We cannot resuscitate a constructive trust that’s been dead for fifteen years. And we refuse to bring back a trust whose dissolution we ordered because of the due-process problems it had presented. The second order said: “[C]ounsel filed notice of an appraisal . . . , which listed the value of the property described in the mortgage as one million six hundred ninety thousand dollars ($1,690,000.00). Accordingly, all the conditions set forth in the March 1, 2006 order have been satisfied. The constructive trust imposed on November 17, 2004, and amended on December 6, 2004, is DISSOLVED.” Again, there’s nothing here for us to enforce. The district court might’ve been wrong in finding that the conditions precedent had been satisfied. But that’s an issue with the order— not its enforcement. Samara’s claim, in short, is for reformation; the statute of limitations is ten years; and the clock started ticking way back in 2006. Since Samara didn’t file his complaint until 2019, his claim is time barred. USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 24 of 27 24 Opinion of the Court 20-14629 II. Samara’s Claim for Reformation Fails on the Merits Because Samara’s reformation claim is time barred, we needn’t reach its merits. We note here only that, even if we did, the claim would fail. Alabama law provides, in pertinent part, as follows: When, through fraud, or a mutual mistake of the parties, or a mistake of one party which the other at the time knew or suspected, a deed, mortgage or other conveyance does not truly express the intention of the parties, it may be revised by a court on the application of the party aggrieved so as to express that intention, insofar as this can be done without prejudice to rights acquired by third persons in good faith and for value. ALA. CODE § 35-4-153. The Alabama Supreme Court has “explained that reformation of a deed or mortgage pursuant to § 35-4-153 is appropriate only when there is ‘clear, convincing, and satisfactory’ evidence indicating that the conveyance does not truly express the parties’ intent.” U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Shepherd, 202 So. 3d 302, 309 (Ala. 2015) (quoting Mullinax v. Mullinax, 495 So. 2d 646, 648 (Ala. 1986)). The district court resolved this question on Taylor’s motion for judgment on the pleadings. A judgment on the pleadings is appropriate when there are no issues of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Perez, 774 F.3d at USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 25 of 27 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 25 1335. “A motion for judgment on the pleadings is governed by the same standard as a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).” Carbone v. Cable News Network, Inc., 910 F.3d 1345, 1350 (11th Cir. 2018). When ruling on a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), we accept the complaint’s factual allegations as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the non-movant. See, e.g., Michel v. NYP Holdings, Inc., 816 F.3d 686, 694 (11th Cir. 2016). To survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings, then, the factual allegations “must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level”—with “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 570 (2007). Under this standard, bare legal conclusions “are not entitled to the assumption of truth” and are insufficient, standing alone, to state a claim. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679 (2009). Moreover, “[w]here a complaint pleads facts that are merely consistent with a defendant’s liability, it stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility of entitlement to relief.” Id. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our question, then, is whether Samara has alleged facts that, if taken as true, state a plausible claim of fraud or mistake under Alabama Code § 35-4-153. The district court found that he hadn’t, and we agree. In particular, Samara has failed to plausibly allege that the mortgage doesn’t express the parties’ intentions. He, in fact, did just the opposite: In his Complaint, Samara quoted (and then described) two court orders that referred to the property as USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 26 of 27 26 Opinion of the Court 20-14629 “belonging to Roy and Voncile Davis.” Specifically, the Complaint quoted the district court’s February 15, 2006 order—which, recall, had required the Davises to file the mortgage and appraisal—this way: “Roy Davis and Voncile Davis shall deliver to the Clerk of the Court the originally executed mortgage document . . . and evidence that title is held by Roy Davis and Voncile Davis individually as joint tenants.” And it cited identical language from the district court’s April 10, 2006 order, which had acknowledged the filing of the mortgage and then dissolved the trust. Because the 107 acres of Parcel A were owned individually by Voncile Davis, Samara’s own allegations give us good reason to believe that the land was purposefully excluded from the mortgage. Land owned solely by Voncile Davis, after all, is not owned by Roy and Voncile Davis as joint tenants. In other words, Samara has failed to offer “clear, convincing, and satisfactory [allegations] indicating that the conveyance does not truly express the parties’ intent.” U.S. Bank, 202 So. 3d at 309 (internal quotation marks omitted). Against all this, Samara advances two arguments—both unpersuasive. First, Samara suggests that “fraud and mistake can be implied from the circumstances.” Opening Brief at 16. But, for all the reasons we’ve given, we disagree that fraud and mistake can be implied on this record in a “clear, convincing, and satisfactory” way, which is what Alabama law requires. Second, and alternatively, Samara reiterates that “he seeks to enforce a court order which does USCA11 Case: 20-14629 Date Filed: 06/14/2022 Page: 27 of 27 21-10745 Opinion of the Court 27 not require any showing of fraud or mistake.” Id. We disagree. As we’ve explained, Samara did not set out to enforce a court order; he hasn’t pointed us to any such order; and there’s no such order for us to enforce in any case. Because we affirm the district court’s ruling on Taylor’s motion for judgment on the pleadings under the more-exacting de novo standard of review, our conclusion applies with even greater force to the court’s denial of Samara’s Rule 59, which we review only for an abuse of discretion. Suffice it to say here that the district court did not commit “manifest errors of law or fact” in denying Samara’s motion for reconsideration. See St. Joseph’s Hosp., 842 F.3d at 1349. And Samara offered no “newly-discovered evidence” to justify reconsideration. Id. Instead, his motion for reconsideration was an impermissible attempt “to relitigate old matters, raise argument or present evidence that could have been raised prior to the entry of judgment.” Arthur, 500 F.3d at 1343 (cleaned up). So, we affirm the court’s denial of Samara’s Rule 59 motion as well.