Court Opinion

ID: 9412884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-01 21:01:39.138029+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:37.393743
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-2087
MARY S. WILSON,
                                                  Plaintiff-Appellant,
                                 v.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, et al.,
                                               Defendants-Appellees.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
            No. 21 C 1955 — Thomas M. Durkin, Judge.
                     ____________________

    ARGUED DECEMBER 7, 2022 — DECIDED AUGUST 1, 2023
                ____________________

   Before FLAUM, KIRSCH, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit
Judges.
    JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Mary Wilson was travel-
ing at Chicago’s O’Hare airport with $33,783 in cash when the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized the money
based on suspicions that the proceeds were from illegal drug
activity. The DEA notified Wilson that it would declare the
seized cash as government property, a process known as ad-
ministrative forfeiture. Months later, the agency did precisely
2                                                    No. 22-2087

that. When Wilson’s attempts to challenge the forfeiture with
the agency failed, she filed this lawsuit. The district court con-
cluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to set aside the
declaration of forfeiture, so it dismissed the case. The district
court was correct to dismiss the case, but Wilson’s lawsuit
fails on the merits, not necessarily for want of jurisdiction.
Therefore, we affirm the judgment but modify it to indicate
that the dismissal is with prejudice.
                                I
    The DEA seized the money Wilson was carrying on June
25, 2020, and then notified her on August 21, 2020, that the
agency planned to administratively forfeit the money. This
notice satisfied the requirement under the Civil Asset Forfei-
ture Reform Act of 2000 (“CAFRA”) that the agency send no-
tice of any planned forfeiture no later than 60 days after sei-
zure. 18 U.S.C. § 983(a)(1)(A).
    The DEA notice stated that if Wilson wished to contest the
forfeiture of the seized money, she had to file a “claim” with
the DEA by September 25, 2020. The notice warned that fail-
ure to file a claim by the deadline would mean she waived her
right to contest the forfeiture, and she would not be able to
contest the forfeiture in any other proceeding, criminal or
civil.
    On September 18, 2020, Wilson’s attorney attempted to
contest the forfeiture but mistakenly filed the wrong form
with the agency. The attorney filed a “petition for remission,”
which seeks to reduce the amount of seized money subject to
forfeiture. See 28 C.F.R. §§ 9.3, 9.5. As indicated above, the
proper and exclusive vehicle by which to challenge a forfei-
ture altogether is by filing a “claim.” A claim forces the agency
No. 22-2087                                                    3

to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the seized
property is subject to forfeiture. See 18 U.S.C. § 983(c).
    Wilson’s attorney realized the mistake about five months
later and sent a letter to the DEA asking to correct the error.
The DEA denied the request, reiterating that Wilson’s failure
to file a claim by the then-passed deadline barred any oppor-
tunity to contest the forfeiture. The forfeiture was going for-
ward. Out of administrative options, Wilson filed this lawsuit.
                               II
   To initiate the lawsuit, Wilson filed a Motion to Recover
Seized Property under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure
41(g). But that rule, as the district court noted, is not the
proper way to challenge an administrative forfeiture in fed-
eral district court. Rather, as we recently explained in a strik-
ingly similar case, Rule 41(g) “is properly invoked to request
the return of seized property before forfeiture proceedings
have been initiated.” Troconis-Escovar v. United States, 59 F.4th
273, 276 (7th Cir. 2023). By the time Wilson’s attorney knocked
on the district court’s door, forfeiture proceedings against
Wilson’s property had already begun.
    In dismissing Wilson’s case, the district court highlighted
a second problem with Wilson’s motion: she asserted the
court had alternative jurisdiction in equity when, in reality,
the passage of CAFRA in 2000 changed the landscape. Now
section 983(e) of CAFRA is “the exclusive remedy for seeking
to set aside a declaration of forfeiture under a civil forfeiture
statute,” and motions under the statute are permitted only
when challenging the sufficiency of the government’s notice
to interested parties. 18 U.S.C. § 983(e)(5). Wilson did not as-
sert any challenge to the notice she received from the DEA
4                                                   No. 22-2087

about the forfeiture. Instead, Wilson’s argument boiled down
to a request for equitable relief—specifically that the district
court exercise jurisdiction over her claim despite the statute
only permitting sufficiency-of-notice challenges. The district
court concluded that exercising so-called “equitable jurisdic-
tion” over Wilson’s claim would be inappropriate because the
cases she relied on—those supporting the invocation of “eq-
uitable jurisdiction”—became outdated upon the passage of
CAFRA. Because CAFRA only permits challenges to the suf-
ficiency of an agency’s notice, the district court concluded that
it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed Wilson’s case.
    Lack of jurisdiction may or may not have been the appro-
priate grounds for dismissal; the question is not settled. As we
recently observed, “[c]ourts disagree about the proper char-
acterization of the CAFRA process: does it strip courts of ju-
risdiction to hear challenges that fall outside of section
983(e)’s ambit, or does it establish a mandatory claims-pro-
cessing rule?” Troconis-Escovar, 59 F.4th at 277. Our Troconis-
Escovar decision did not decide the question, and we need not
either. “The difference between a jurisdictional bar and a
mandatory claims-processing rule can be critical to a case’s
outcome.” Id. at 278 (emphasis added). “But it is largely in-
consequential where, as here, the government has not waived
its enforcement of the precondition”—that is, its requirement
that Wilson file a claim by the specified deadline. Id.
   What we are left with are the merits. Again, Wilson does
not claim the DEA’s notice of its intended forfeiture was in-
adequate in any way. Apart from challenges based on notice,
“Congress has authorized no other means for challenging a
declaration of forfeiture” in federal court. Id. at 277. Wilson’s
motion fails.
No. 22-2087                                                      5

    What Wilson really seeks is equitable relief from the
DEA’s rule that claims must be filed by a deadline. But, just
like the claimant in Troconis-Escovar, she “does not cite to (and
we are not aware of) any post-CAFRA case in which a federal
appeals court has endorsed that approach [i.e., equitable re-
lief] under similar circumstances.” Id. at 278. Furthermore, eq-
uitable relief is inappropriate under the specific circum-
stances of her case. Wilson finds herself unable to challenge
the forfeiture because her attorney made a mistake and failed
to realize his error until it was too late, not because of extraor-
dinary circumstances or government misconduct. We have
held that “[c]areless mistakes of this type are not reason for
courts to exercise their equitable powers to override statutory
requirements.” Id. We AFFIRM the judgment as amended.