Court Opinion

ID: 9891456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-18 17:01:02.6884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:47:23.520671
License: Public Domain

FILED
                            NOT FOR PUBLICATION
                                                                            OCT 18 2023
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                       MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                          U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

                            FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON,                     No.   20-15798
FKA The Bank of New York, as Trustee
for the Certificateholders CWABS, Inc.           D.C. No.
Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2006-6,        2:16-cv-02561-RFB-BNW

              Plaintiff-counter-
              defendant-Appellant,               MEMORANDUM*

 v.

STAR HILL HOMEOWNERS
ASSOCIATION,

              Defendant-Appellee,

SFR INVESTMENTS POOL 1, LLC,

              Defendant-counter-claimant-
              Appellee,

 and

SBW INVESTMENTS LLC; NEVADA
ASSOCIATION SERVICES, INC.,

              Defendants.

       *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                             for the District of Nevada
                  Richard F. Boulware II, District Judge, Presiding

                        Argued and Submitted October 2, 2023
                                 Las Vegas, Nevada

Before: RAWLINSON and OWENS, Circuit Judges, and FITZWATER,** District
        Judge.

      The Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM) appeals the district court’s

summary judgment in favor of Appellees, SFR Investments Pool 1, LLC (SFR),

and Star Hill Homeowners Association (the HOA) (collectively, Appellees),

concluding that BNYM’s claims were time-barred. Because the district court did

not have the benefit of the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Bank, N.A. v.

Thunder Properties, Inc., 503 P.3d 299 (Nev. 2022) (en banc), we vacate and

remand for the district court to apply that ruling in the first instance.

      The district court used the date of the foreclosure sale of the property as the

triggering date for the statutes of limitations. However, in Thunder Properties, the

Nevada Supreme Court concluded that a foreclosure sale alone does not trigger the

running of the statute of limitations for quiet title actions. See 503 P.3d at 306-07.

Rather, “notice of some affirmative action by the titleholder to repudiate the lien or

      **
            The Honorable Sidney A. Fitzwater, United States District Judge for
the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation.
                                            2
that is otherwise inconsistent with the lien’s continued existence” is required to

trigger the running of the limitations period. Id. at 306.

      As the district court did not consider whether Appellees affirmatively

repudiated the deed of trust, remand for the district court to consider this issue in

the first instance is appropriate. See Coomes v. Edmonds Sch. Dist. No. 15, 816

F.3d 1255, 1265 (9th Cir. 2016) (vacating the federal district court’s judgment due

to intervening authority).1

      VACATED AND REMANDED.

      1
    Because we resolve this appeal on this basis, we need not and do not reach
BNYM’s alternative arguments.
                                           3