Court Opinion

ID: 9958298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-08 20:01:28.619891+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:09.234077
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-13039    Document: 31-1     Date Filed: 04/08/2024   Page: 1 of 8

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                          ____________________

                                No. 23-13039
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       CONRAD JOSEPH JAMES, JR.,
                                                     Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       FREEDOM MORTGAGE CORPORATION,

                                                   Defendant-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                    for the Northern District of Georgia
                    D.C. Docket No. 1:23-cv-03097-MHC
                          ____________________
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       2                         Opinion of the Court                       23-13039

       Before LUCK, ANDERSON, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Plaintiff Conrad James, proceeding pro se, appeals the district
       court’s sua sponte dismissal of his complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
       § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i) following a frivolity review. After a careful re-
       view of the record and the briefing submitted by Plaintiff, 1 we
       AFFIRM.
                                    BACKGROUND
              On July 13, 2023, Plaintiff filed an application to proceed in
       forma pauperis and a notice of removal in the district court for the
       Northern District of Georgia. As an exhibit to the notice of re-
       moval, Plaintiff attached a complaint he had filed against Defend-
       ant Freedom Mortgage Corporation in the Gwinnett County,
       Georgia Superior Court. See Conrad Joseph James, Jr. v. Freedom Mort-
       gage Corp., Georgia case no. 23-A-01335-2. As best we can deter-
       mine from the allegations made in and the exhibits attached to the
       complaint, Plaintiff intended to assert defamation and fraud claims
       against Defendant, the lienholder on his mortgaged residence in
       Snellville, Georgia, related to Defendant’s foreclosure on the prop-
       erty.

       1  Defendant did not submit an appellate brief because the magistrate judge
       stayed service of process in the case pending the frivolity review, and the case
       subsequently was dismissed pursuant to the review.
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       23-13039               Opinion of the Court                         3

              Plaintiff did not, in his notice of removal, set forth a statu-
       tory basis for removing his Gwinnett County case to federal court.
       He checked a box marked “federal question” in the “basis of juris-
       diction” section of the civil cover sheet, but he did not identify any
       legal basis to support the purported federal question. Nor was any
       basis for asserting federal jurisdiction apparent in the state com-
       plaint Plaintiff attached to the notice of removal.
              Based on Plaintiff’s representations as to his income and ex-
       penses, a magistrate judge granted his motion to proceed in forma
       pauperis. The judge then submitted the case to the district court
       for a frivolity review pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). The
       judge stayed service of process in the case pending the results of
       the review.
               Before the district court had an opportunity to complete the
       frivolity review, Plaintiff filed an affidavit in which he claimed De-
       fendant had defamed him by spreading rumors about his alleged
       debt. Plaintiff also claimed in the affidavit that Defendant had used
       deceptive debt collection practices in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1611,
       violated various IRS and other federal regulations, and committed
       racketeering and fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961 and 1341.
              The district court subsequently determined in the frivolity
       review that Plaintiff’s complaint should be dismissed because his
       notice of removal was deficient as a matter of law. Citing the fed-
       eral removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1441, the court first noted that the
       statute allows removal only by a “defendant” named in a state
       court complaint, not the plaintiff who chose to file the complaint
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  23-13039

       in state court in the first instance. Second, the court took judicial
       notice of the fact that Plaintiff’s Gwinnett County case was dis-
       missed on May 1, 2023, and his appeal denied on July 12, 2023,
       meaning that when Plaintiff filed his notice of removal on July 13,
       2023, there was no longer a case pending in state court that could
       be removed. Finally, the court determined that Plaintiff had not
       established federal jurisdiction over any claims asserted in the com-
       plaint he sought to remove. For all these reasons, the court con-
       cluded that Plaintiff’s attempt to remove his complaint failed as a
       matter of law and that his notice of removal should be dismissed as
       frivolous pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).
              Plaintiff responded by filing a document titled “Notice of Es-
       toppel, Affidavit, and Stipulation of Constitutional Challenge . . .
       [and] Motion to Intervene with an Injunction.” To the extent
       Plaintiff intended this document to be a motion, the district court
       denied it, noting that the document was simply a list of various
       provisions of the Georgia Constitution and a restatement of his
       claim on removal that the court previously had rejected as defi-
       cient.
               While awaiting the district court’s ruling on the document
       described above, Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his notice of re-
       moval. In support of the appeal, Plaintiff argues in his appellate
       brief that the district court violated his due process rights under the
       Georgia Constitution when it denied his “cease and desist” motion
       and/or affidavit and when it held that his filing was frivolous with-
       out providing a clear explanation. Further addressing the merits of
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       23-13039                Opinion of the Court                           5

       his case, Plaintiff claims in his brief that Defendant breached its con-
       tract with him and committed fraud by failing to credit Plaintiff’s
       payment toward his mortgage. Relative to these issues, Plaintiff
       proffers an expert witness to testify as to a mortgage fraud analysis
       the expert prepared. As to the district court’s alleged error, Plaintiff
       argues there is “insufficient evidence” to dismiss the dispute be-
       tween himself and Defendant and that the court’s findings below
       were erroneous pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a),
       which applies to a civil action tried without a jury, and 5 U.S.C.
       § 706(2), which governs judicial review of agency action.
               Plaintiff does not address in his appellate brief the basis for
       the district court’s dismissal of his case: a clearly deficient notice of
       removal. Accordingly, he has abandoned that issue. See United
       States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 873 (11th Cir. 2022) (clarifying that
       issues not raised in an initial brief on appeal are treated as forfeited,
       and considered by this Court only in “extraordinary circum-
       stances” not present here). For that reason, and because the district
       court correctly dismissed Plaintiff’s case as frivolous under 28
       U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), we affirm.
                                   DISCUSSION
       I.     Standard of Review
              We review the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s com-
       plaint as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) for an abuse of
       discretion. Bilal v. Driver, 251 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2001). Such
       an abuse of discretion occurs if the district court “makes an error
       of law or makes a clearly erroneous factual finding.” Taveras v.
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       6                       Opinion of the Court                  23-13039

       Bank of Am., N.A., 89 F.4th 1279, 1285 (11th Cir. 2024) (quotation
       marks omitted). As a pro se litigant, Plaintiff’s pleadings “are held
       to a less stringent standard than pleadings drafted by [an] attorney[]
       and will, therefore, be liberally construed.” Tannenbaum v. United
       States, 148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998). But this leniency does
       not give a court “license to serve as de facto counsel for a party, or
       to rewrite an otherwise deficient pleading in order to sustain an
       action.” GJR Invs., Inc. v. Cnty. of Escambia, 132 F.3d 1359, 1369
       (11th Cir. 1998) (citations omitted), overruled on other grounds by Ash-
       croft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009).
       II.    Analysis
                 Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), a district court is re-
       quired to dismiss an in forma pauperis case sua sponte if the court
       determines that the case (1) is frivolous or malicious, (2) fails to
       state a claim on which relief may be granted, or (3) seeks monetary
       relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief. See 28
       U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s in
       forma pauperis case after concluding it was frivolous under
       § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). A claim is frivolous for purposes of this provision
       if it is “without arguable merit either in law or fact.” Bilal, 251 F.3d
       at 1349.
               The district court held that Plaintiff’s notice of removal was
       meritless as a matter of law, and that dismissal was thus required
       under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). As noted, Plaintiff abandoned any chal-
       lenge to that holding he might otherwise have asserted on appeal
       by failing to address the specific grounds for the court’s holding.
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       23-13039                   Opinion of the Court                                7

       See Campbell, 26 F.4th at 873. Accordingly, we affirm the district
       court on the ground of abandonment.
               We note also that the district court’s holding was correct.
       The right to remove a case to federal court is “purely statutory and
       therefore its scope and the terms of its availability are entirely de-
       pendent” on the terms set out by Congress in the federal removal
       statute. Global Satellite Commc’ns Co. v. Starmill U.K. Ltd., 378 F.3d
       1269, 1271 (11th Cir. 2004) (quotation marks omitted). Further-
       more, “because removal jurisdiction raises significant federalism
       concerns,” the removal statute is construed strictly. City of Vestavia
       Hills v. Gen. Fid. Ins. Co., 676 F.3d 1310, 1313 (11th Cir. 2012) (alter-
       ation accepted). Plaintiff’s notice of removal clearly fails to meet
       the plain language of the federal removal statute, which permits
       “the defendant” in a civil action brought in state court, in certain
       circumstances, to remove the action to the federal district court in
       the “district and division embracing the place where such action is
       pending.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a) (emphasis added).
               As the district court pointed out, the removing party here
       was not the defendant in the state court action referenced in the
       notice of removal but rather the plaintiff, and the action was no
       longer pending when the notice of removal was filed. Thus, the
       district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined that
       the notice of removal was legally without merit and thus required
       to be dismissed under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i). 2

       2 Having decided that Plaintiff clearly did not satisfy the plain language of the

       federal removal statute, we need not address the district court’s third reason
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       8                          Opinion of the Court                       23-13039

                                     CONCLUSION
             For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s
       order dismissing Plaintiff’s complaint as frivolous pursuant to 28
       U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(i).

       for dismissing Plaintiff’s case—that is, his failure to allege an adequate ground
       for asserting federal jurisdiction over the case.