Court Opinion

ID: 9914074
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-29 16:00:59.108098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:01.904104
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11975   Document: 57-1     Date Filed: 12/29/2023   Page: 1 of 16

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                  In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 22-11975
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

        ELIEZER TAVERAS,
                                                     Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        US BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
        US BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION,
        as Trustee for the GSAMP Trust 2006-HE6 Mortgage
        Pass-Through Certiﬁcates, Series 2006-HE6,
        OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC,

                                                 Defendants-Appellees.

                          ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11975

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Southern District of Florida
                      D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-21134-RNS
                            ____________________

        Before BRANCH, ABUDU, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                This case is plaintiff-appellant Eliezer Taveras’s third
        attempt to reverse foreclosure and repossession proceedings on
        real property he owned in Florida. The district court rejected
        Taveras’s arguments that the defendants had improperly removed
        the suit to federal court and dismissed the action for claim-splitting.
        Taveras argues on appeal that (1) the defendants improperly
        removed the suit to federal court, (2) the district court lacked
        jurisdiction because of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, and (3) the
        district court erred in dismissing the complaint for claim-splitting.
        After review, we conclude that the district court had jurisdiction,
        and we affirm the district court’s order dismissing this case for the
        alternative reason that Taveras’s claims are barred by res judicata.
                                  I.     Background
                  A. The Purchase and Foreclosure
               In 2006, an individual named Maria Sanchez purchased real
        property in Florida, taking out a mortgage on the property with
        Ownit Mortgage Solutions, Inc. Sanchez eventually defaulted on
        the loan, and so defendant-appellee U.S. Bank National Association
        (by then the successor-in-interest to Ownit) commenced
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        22-11975                  Opinion of the Court                                3

        foreclosure efforts in 2007. These foreclosure efforts apparently
        continued for years without success because, in 2014, Sanchez
        transferred the property to Taveras, as the Trustee of his family’s
        trust.
               U.S. Bank eventually filed another foreclosure action, this
        time against Taveras as trustee (and various other interested
        parties) in 2017. In 2018, Taveras entered into a settlement
        agreement with U.S. Bank. The settlement consisted of the
        following key terms:
               (1) Taveras consented to the entry of a consent ﬁnal
               judgment of foreclosure;

               (2) Taveras agreed to a judicial sale of the property;
               and

               (3) Taveras released U.S. Bank, Ocwen Loan Servicing
               (the company that assigned U.S. Bank the mortgage),
               and their successors/assigns from any related claims.

        The Florida state court entered judgment to that effect. U.S. Bank
        bought the property at a judicial sale in January 2019. 1
                   B. The Parties’ Prior Litigation
              Taveras, apparently unhappy with the settlement
        agreement, sought post-judgment relief from the consent
        judgment on the foreclosure and sale in May 2019 from the Florida

        1 We note that, after the January 2019 judicial sale, Taveras (as trustee)

        purported to transfer the property to himself in his individual capacity.
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        4                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11975

        state courts. The state court denied relief and Taveras appealed,
        but then he later voluntarily dismissed the appeal on August 12,
        2019.
               Just before Taveras dismissed his appeal in that state court
        case, however, he filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the
        Southern District of Florida (“Taveras I”) against U.S. Bank and
        Ocwen Loan Servicing. In relevant part, Taveras argued that U.S.
        Bank and Ocwen improperly induced him to sign the 2018 consent
        judgment and that the assignment of the mortgage from Ocwen to
        U.S. Bank was fraudulent; he therefore sought a declaratory
        judgment that the 2018 consent judgment was void. The district
        court dismissed Taveras’s fraud claims as barred by res judicata in
        connection with the state foreclosure proceedings on December 3,
        2019. Taveras v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, No. 19-cv-23358, 2019
        WL 6497367 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 3, 2019).
               About two years later, Taveras filed a second federal suit
        against U.S. Bank and Ocwen (“Taveras II”). This second suit
        asserted nine causes of action but, once again, the core claims were
        that (1) U.S. Bank and Ocwen had deceived him into signing the
        2018 consent judgment and (2) the assignment of the mortgage
        from Ocwen to U.S. Bank was fraudulent. But, this time, Taveras
        further asserted that the State Court lacked jurisdiction and he
        therefore had a “right to have the [consent final judgment] declared
        null and void ab initio.” The district court granted the defendant-
        appellees’ motion to dismiss, concluding that the Rooker-Feldman
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        22-11975                    Opinion of the Court                                    5

        doctrine barred Taveras’s claims.2 The district court also denied
        Taveras’s motion to amend his complaint to add federal claims
        under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
        (“RICO”) and a request for injunctive relief. Taveras sought
        reconsideration, which was denied on May 10, 2021. He did not
        appeal.
               Meanwhile, Ocwen and U.S. Bank moved in the Florida
        state court for a writ of possession on the real property.3 The state
        court granted the writ. Taveras, in addition to some other
        maneuvering not pertinent here, sought discretionary review 4 of

        2 Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923), and District of Columbia Court

        of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983), formed the Rooker-Feldman doctrine,
        which precludes federal courts from reviewing state court judgments.
        3 While briefing was ongoing in this case, we granted a motion by U.S. Bank

        and Ocwen to take judicial notice of documents filed in the state and federal
        cases preceding this lawsuit.
        Now, Taveras asks us to take judicial notice of three documents from the state
        court proceedings and two documents from Taveras II. These documents are
        relevant to the procedural history in the litigation related to this case, and so
        we GRANT the motion for the limited purpose of taking notice of what they
        purport to argue and hold. See Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 713 F.3d 1066,
        1075 n.9 (11th Cir. 2013); see also Dippin’ Dots, Inc. v. Frosty Bites Distrib., LLC.,
        369 F.3d 1197, 1204 (11th Cir. 2004) (explaining that a court may take judicial
        notice of a fact “relevant to a determination of the claims presented in [a] case”
        if it is not subject to reasonable dispute and it can be accurately and readily
        determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned
        (citing Fed. R. Evid. 201)).
        4 Taveras denies initiating that review—a point we address in reviewing the

        preclusive effect that the prior litigation has in this case. See below at n.7.
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11975

        the state court’s order granting the writ of possession before the
        Florida Supreme Court on April 5, 2022—but the Florida Supreme
        Court denied his petition on May 18, 2022. Taveras v. U.S. Bank,
        N.A., No. SC2022-0442, (Fla. May 18, 2022).
                  C. This Lawsuit
               Before he filed the petition with the Florida Supreme Court,
        Taveras filed a third lawsuit—this lawsuit—against U.S. Bank and
        Ocwen in Florida state court. In his complaint, Taveras asserted
        federal RICO claims and reiterated his claims of fraud under Florida
        law related to the consent judgment. Once more, he asserted
        (among other things) that the state court lacked jurisdiction
        throughout the foreclosure proceedings for various reasons,
        including when it issued the writ of possession.
                U.S. Bank and Ocwen removed the case to federal court,
        relying on Taveras’s assertion of federal RICO claims. They then
        moved to dismiss, arguing in relevant part that (1) the district court
        lacked jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine; (2) res
        judicata barred Taveras’s claims; (3) Taveras had released all his
        claims against them in the settlement agreement, and (4) Taveras
        failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted.
               Taveras responded by asking the district court to hold the
        defendants and their attorneys in contempt for “fraud on the
        court.” He sought civil and criminal contempt sanctions against
        the parties because, according to Taveras, they essentially
        conspired to manipulate the system by removing the case to federal
        court to strip the court of jurisdiction and avoid having the case
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        22-11975                     Opinion of the Court                                    7

        heard on the merits. Relatedly, he also moved to remand the case
        back to state court because removal was part of the defendants’
        “fraudulent scheme” to obstruct the administration of justice.
                The district court concluded that removal was proper and
        that it had subject matter jurisdiction over Taveras’s claims. Thus,
        the district court denied Taveras’s motions for contempt and
        remand as “wholly meritless.”
               The district court also, sua sponte, concluded that Taveras’s
        claims had to be dismissed because he had engaged in improper
        claim-splitting.5 The case involved the same parties as Taveras’s
        previous federal cases, the district court noted, and arose out of the
        same nucleus of operative facts. And, despite any variation in
        Taveras’s claims, Taveras (like in his previous cases) “attempt[ed]

        5 The claim-splitting rule is an offshoot of claim preclusion principles, based

        on the notion that “related claims must be brought in a single cause of action.”
        Vanover v. NCO Fin. Servs., 857 F.3d 833, 840–41 (11th Cir. 2017) (“The rule
        against claim-splitting requires a plaintiff to assert all its causes of action arising
        from a common set of facts in one lawsuit. By spreading claims around in
        multiple lawsuits in other courts or before other judges, parties waste ‘scarce
        judicial resources’ and undermine ‘the efficient and comprehensive disposition
        of cases.’” (quoting Katz v. Gerardi, 655 F.3d 1212, 1214 (10th Cir. 2011)); cf.
        Dietz v. Bouldin, 579 U.S. 40, 45 (2016) (district courts possess “inherent powers
        that are not governed by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested
        in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and
        expeditious disposition of cases”). The claim-splitting rule thus “ensures that
        a plaintiff may not split up his demand and prosecute it by piecemeal, or
        present only a portion of the grounds upon which relief is sought, and leave
        the rest to be presented in a second suit, if the first fails.” Vanover, 857 F.3d at
        841 (quotation omitted).
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        8                      Opinion of the Court               22-11975

        to avoid the consent final judgment, entered in state court, by
        claiming that . . . the state court lacked jurisdiction, that the
        assignment of mortgage in favor of U.S. Bank was fraudulent, and
        that U.S. Bank and Ocwen had . . . deceived him in order to obtain
        the consent final judgment.” Accordingly, the district court
        concluded that Taveras engaged in improper claim-splitting when
        he filed this duplicative action, and it dismissed the case with
        prejudice. Taveras then filed a motion for reconsideration,
        requesting that the court vacate the dismissal because the action
        was improperly removed to federal court, and the court lacked
        jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. The district court
        denied the motion.
              Taveras timely appealed.
                             II.   Standards of Review
              This case involves three standards of review.
               First, we review jurisdictional determinations de novo.
        United States v. Weiss, 467 F.3d 1300, 1307 (11th Cir. 2006). In
        conducting this review, we may look beyond the allegations of the
        complaint to ascertain our jurisdiction. See McElmurray v.
        Consolidated Gov’t of Augusta-Richmond Cnty., 501 F.3d 1244, 1251
        (11th Cir. 2007). Thus, we may consider exhibits attached to the
        complaint, McElmurray, 501 F.3d at 1251–54, and matters of which
        we have taken judicial notice, see Lozman, 713 F.3d at 1075 n.9.
               Second, we review a district court’s decision to dismiss a
        complaint for claim-splitting only for abuse of discretion. Vanover,
        857 F.3d at 837.
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        22-11975                    Opinion of the Court                                  9

               And third, because we may affirm on any basis supported by
        the record, Club Madonna, Inc. v. City of Miami Beach, 924 F.3d 1370,
        1378 (11th Cir. 2019), we review questions of res judicata de novo.
        See Ragsdale v. Rubbermaid, Inc., 193 F.3d 1235, 1238 (11th Cir. 1999).
                                         III.    Discussion
                Taveras argues on appeal that the district court erred in
        dismissing his complaint for claim-splitting. His first two
        arguments contend that the dismissal was improper because the
        district court never had jurisdiction in the first place. But even if
        the district court had jurisdiction, he argues, we must still reverse
        the district court because it misapplied the claim-splitting rule.
        We address each argument in turn.6

        6 Taveras also requests that we strike the Appellees’ brief on judicial estoppel

        grounds because he maintains that they have improperly taken inconsistent
        positions concerning the application of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. Even
        assuming Taveras is correct that the Appellees’ positions taken in the course
        of these cases are inconsistent, there would be little point in judicially
        estopping the appellees on the Rooker-Feldman issue here. On the one hand,
        judicial estoppel is a discretionary tool. See Slater v. U.S. Steel Corp., 871 F.3d
        1174, 1180–81 (11th Cir. 2017). And on the other, this Court has an
        independent obligation to assess jurisdictional issues like Rooker-Feldman—
        regardless of whether the Appellees are in a position to argue them. Scarfo v.
        Ginsberg, 175 F.3d 957, 960 (11th Cir.1999) (“[P]arties cannot waive subject
        matter jurisdiction, and we may consider subject matter jurisdiction claims at
        any time during litigation.”); In re S.W. Bell Tel. Co., 535 F.2d 859, 861 (5th Cir.
        1976) (“Whatever the scope” of judicial estoppel “may be, so far as we have
        been able to discover[,] it has never been employed to prevent a party from
        taking advantage of a federal forum when he otherwise meets the statutory
        requirements of federal jurisdiction . . . . A district court has no authority to
        negate that right simply because such a person has not observed the
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        10                         Opinion of the Court                         22-11975

                    A. The district court had subject matter jurisdiction.
               Taveras first argues that the district court should not have
        dismissed his complaint for claim-splitting because the court did
        not have jurisdiction and the case was therefore improperly
        removed in the first place. But his complaint alleged that U.S. Bank
        and Ocwen violated the federal RICO statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1961.
        That federal claim gave the district court original subject matter
        jurisdiction, see 28 U.S.C. § 1331, and the case was therefore
        removable, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 1441(a), (c) (providing that generally
        “any civil action brought in a State court of which the district courts
        of the United States have original jurisdiction, may be removed by
        the defendant . . . to the district court,” and this includes civil
        actions that contain both federal and state law claims).
               Taveras’s only argument to the contrary rests on the view
        that a case is only removable if the federal courts have “exclusive
        jurisdiction” over the claims at issue. Taveras’s argument,
        however, is foreclosed by the removal statute. See 28 U.S.C. §
        1441(a), (c).

        consistency in pleading that the forum state may demand. Judicial estoppel
        cannot conclusively establish jurisdictional facts.”), affirmed en banc by In re
        S.W. Bell Tel. Co., 542 F.2d 297, 298 (5th Cir. 1976), vacated on other grounds by
        Gravitt v. S.W. Bell Tel. Co., 430 U.S. 723, 724 (1977); see also Bonner v. City of
        Pritchard, Ala. 661 F.2d 1206 (11th Cir. 1981) (adopting as binding precedent all
        decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to October 1, 1981).
        In short, there is no sound reason to judicially estop the Appellees from
        arguing an issue related to subject matter jurisdiction. We therefore exercise
        our discretion to DENY the motion to strike.
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        22-11975               Opinion of the Court                         11

              Thus, we agree with the district court that removal was
        proper because it had federal question jurisdiction over this case.
                   B. The Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not deprive the
                      district court of jurisdiction.
               Taveras’s other jurisdictional argument is that the Rooker-
        Feldman doctrine “strip[ped the district] court of jurisdiction over”
        his complaint, referencing the district court’s prior conclusion in
        Taveras II that it lacked jurisdiction under Rooker-Feldman. We
        disagree.
                The Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars federal district courts from
        reviewing or effectively reviewing state-court decisions, since
        lower federal courts lack subject matter jurisdiction over final state-
        court judgments. Behr v. Cambell, 8 F.4th 1206, 1208 (11th Cir.
        2021). It applies 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). For
        the doctrine to apply, the complained-of injuries must be caused by
        the judgment itself. Behr, 8 F.4th at 1212. Indeed, it is a pre-
        requisite that the federal action must be filed after the state
        proceedings have ended. Nicholson v. Shafe, 558 F.3d 1266, 1277–78
        (11th Cir. 2009).
               Taveras’s claims here are not barred by the Rooker-Feldman
        doctrine because his state court proceedings were still pending at
        the time the case was removed to federal court. Id. Specifically,
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        12                         Opinion of the Court                        22-11975

        Taveras filed this complaint in state court on February 22, 2022,
        asserting (among other things) that the state court lacked
        jurisdiction throughout the proceedings, including when it issued
        the writ of possession. The action was removed to federal court
        on April 13, 2022. Yet the Florida Supreme Court did not deny
        Taveras’s petition for review of the order granting the writ of
        possession until more than a month later, on May 18, 2022. Taveras
        v. U.S. Bank, N.A., No. SC22-442 (Fla. May 18, 2022). 7 So, with that
        petition for review still pending, the state proceedings had not
        ended—and Taveras’s injuries could not have been caused by the
        judgment itself. Nicholson, 558 F.3d at 1275–76 (“[W]e agree with
        our sister circuits . . . that state proceedings have not ended for
        purposes of Rooker–Feldman when an appeal from the state court

        7 Taveras insists, on reply, that the Rooker-Feldman still applies because he “did

        not cause the ‘petition’ for review,” pointing to two documents (and we have
        taken judicial notice of both): (1) an email he wrote to the Appellees’ counsel,
        saying that he was appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, not the Florida
        Supreme Court, and (2) a notice he filed in the Florida Supreme Court in
        which he states that he had not sought review in that court, but was instead
        planning to seek review from the U.S. Supreme Court.
        Taveras even goes so far as to accuse the Appellees of fraudulently causing
        that petition to be filed, precisely for the purpose of engineering the
        conclusion that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine does not defeat our jurisdiction
        because state proceedings were still pending when this suit commenced.
        Taveras does not point to any evidence for that claim—and we are skeptical
        of it, not least because the Appellees here argued to the district court that
        Rooker-Feldman in fact did thwart its jurisdiction.
        Regardless, it does not matter. Whatever the reason, the proceedings were
        still ongoing until the Florida Supreme Court denied the petition.
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        22-11975                   Opinion of the Court                                 13

        judgment remains pending at the time the plaintiff commences the
        federal court action.”).8
               Thus, the district court correctly concluded that it did not
        lack subject matter jurisdiction under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.9
                    C. Taveras’s claims here are barred by res judicata.
              Finally, Taveras argues that the district court erred in
        dismissing the action for improper claim-splitting. U.S. Bank and
        Ocwen disagree but contend as a threshold matter that Taveras

        8 Taveras also insists on reply that this logic is mistaken because the ongoing
        proceedings were related to the writ of possession—not the original
        foreclosure action. Taveras is incorrect. To begin with, both the foreclosure
        proceedings and the writ of possession proceedings were part of the same case
        in the Florida Courts. But even if the difference between foreclosure
        proceedings and writ of possession proceedings in the same case somehow
        made a difference, Taveras’s complaint in this case also asserted that the
        Florida state court lacked jurisdiction to issue the writ of possession, as well.
        Since those proceedings were still ongoing at the time this case was filed and
        removed—at least some of the injuries alleged in this federal action would not
        be caused by the foreclosure judgment, and jurisdiction over those claims
        would therefore not be barred by Rooker-Feldman.
        9 Taveras makes a related argument that the district court’s order violated his

        due process rights because it deprived him of an opportunity to be heard.
        Even assuming Taveras’s opening brief was sufficient to preserve this issue,
        see Greenbriar, Ltd. v. City of Alabaster, 881 F.2d 1570, 1573 n.6 (11th Cir. 1989)
        (explaining that passing references to an argument do not suffice to preserve
        it), this argument fails because Taveras had notice of and the opportunity to
        respond to the motion to dismiss below. See Cleveland Bd. of Educ. v. Loudermill,
        470 U.S. 532, 546 (1985) (“The essential requirements of due process . . . are
        notice and an opportunity to respond[,]” including an opportunity to “present
        reasons . . . why [that] proposed action should not be taken[.]”).
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        14                       Opinion of the Court                    22-11975

        abandoned any challenge that portion of the district court’s order
        because his brief only addresses the finding that Taveras had split
        his claims from those he asserted in Taveras II—leaving
        unchallenged the conclusion that he also improperly split his claims
        from those in Taveras I.
              We need not resolve that debate, however, because we
        separately conclude that, even assuming Taveras had preserved the
        issue and that the district court’s claim-splitting analysis was
        flawed, the district court’s order must be affirmed because
        Taveras’s claims are barred by res judicata. See Club Madonna, 924
        F.3d at 1378 (explaining that “we [may] affirm on any basis
        supported by the record, regardless of whether the district court
        decided the case on that basis”).
                Res judicata will bar a subsequent action if: “(1) there is a final
        judgment on the merits; (2) the decision was rendered by a court
        of competent jurisdiction; (3) the parties, or those in privity with
        them, are identical in both suits; and (4) the same cause of action is
        involved in both cases.” Ragsdale, 193 F.3d at 1238. “In
        determining whether the causes of action are the same, a court
        must compare the substance of the actions, not their form.” Id. at
        1239. “[I]f a case arises out of the same nucleus of operative fact,
        or is based on the same factual predicate, as a former action, . . . the
        two cases are really the same ‘claim’ or ‘cause of action’ for the
        purposes of res judicata.” Id. (quotations omitted). This principle
        applies to all claims that were or could have been raised in the
        earlier proceeding. Id.
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        22-11975                Opinion of the Court                         15

                Those elements are all satisfied here. First, the district court
        issued a final order on the merits in Taveras I. Charles A. Wright &
        Arthur R. Miller, 18A Federal Practice & Procedure § 4435 (3d ed.
        August 2023 Update) (“Fittingly, dismissal of a second action on the
        ground that it is precluded by a prior action is itself effective as res
        judicata, and a judgment on the merits that forecloses further
        litigation of the preclusion question in a third action.” (citing United
        States v. Lee, 695 F.2d 515, 519 (11th Cir. 1983)). Second, the U.S.
        District Court for the Southern District of Florida was a court of
        competent jurisdiction in Taveras I. See Ragsdale, 193 F.3d at 1238.
        Third, this case involves the same parties as Taveras I: Taveras, U.S.
        Bank, and Ocwen. Fourth, this case arises out of the same nucleus
        of operative fact as Taveras I. Ragsdale, 193 F.3d at 1238. Although
        Taveras based the present action, in part, on a federal RICO claim,
        which he did not advance in Taveras I, and added a claim related to
        the writ of possession proceedings, both cases involve the same
        dispute over the foreclosure and repossession of the property, as
        well as Taveras’s attempts to void the final consent judgment
        entered by the state court. Indeed, both cases allege malfeasance
        in inducing Taveras to agree to the consent judgment and both
        cases assert that the assignment of the mortgage to U.S. Bank was
        fraudulent. Thus, both Taveras I and this case were based on the
        same factual predicates, so they both involve essentially the same
        “claims” or “causes of action” for the purposes of res judicata. Id. at
        1239.
               Thus, any error in the district court’s claim-splitting analysis
        is harmless because his claims are barred by res judicata.
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        16                    Opinion of the Court                22-11975

                                 IV.    Conclusion
              In sum, we reject Taveras’s arguments that the district court
        lacked jurisdiction, and we affirm the dismissal on res judicata
        grounds.
              AFFIRMED.