Court Opinion

ID: 9926469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-24 20:01:27.951497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:06.695368
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 23-11898   Document: 25-1    Date Filed: 01/24/2024   Page: 1 of 7

                                             [DO NOT PUBLISH]

                                 In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                              No. 23-11898
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       WILLIAM PAUL DEBOSKEY,
                                                   Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
       versus
       STATEBRIDGE COMPANY, LLC,
       RED STICK ACQUISITIONS, LLC,
       SOKOLOF REMTULLA, PLLC,
       OWEN HARVEY SOKOLOF,
       SHAFIN A. REMTULLA, et al.,

                                                Defendants-Appellees,
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       2                      Opinion of the Court                  23-11898

       DONALD ST. JOHN,

                                                                 Defendant.

                            ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                   D.C. Docket No. 8:22-cv-02427-WFJ-AAS
                           ____________________

       Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and DUBINA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Appellant William DeBoskey appeals from the district
       court’s order granting the appellees/defendants’ (collectively the
       “appellees”) motion to dismiss his pro se second amended com-
       plaint, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
       (“FDCPA”) and the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act
       (“FCCPA”), and dismissing the complaint with prejudice. DeBos-
       key argues on appeal that the district court erred in dismissing his
       complaint because the claims within it were not time-barred and it
       stated sufficiently specific facts to state a claim. Having read the
       parties’ briefs and reviewed the record, we affirm the district
       court’s order of dismissal.
                                            I.
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       23-11898               Opinion of the Court                          3

              We review a district court’s application of the statute of lim-
       itations de novo. NE 32nd Street, LLC v. United States, 896 F.3d 1240,
       1243 (11th Cir. 2018). We “give liberal construction to the plead-
       ings of pro se litigants, [but] ‘nevertheless [require] them to conform
       to procedural rules.’” Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th
       Cir. 2007) (quoting Loren v. Sasser, 309 F.3d 1296, 1304 (11th Cir.
       2002)).
                                            II.
              DeBoskey is a Florida resident who owns a homestead prop-
       erty in Hernando County. In 2005, DeBoskey reﬁnanced the prop-
       erty through a mortgage and promissory note that was assigned to
       Goshen Mortgage. Goshen Mortgage ﬁled a foreclosure action
       against the property in the state circuit court, and later, Red Stick
       Acquisitions, LLC was substituted for Goshen Mortgage in the
       foreclosure action. Red Stick ﬁled an amended complaint in the
       state court foreclosure action in 2018. At this point, DeBoskey al-
       leges that Red Stick began directing its agents to make false claims
       about his debt and make threats to foreclose on the property.
       These agents allegedly include Statebridge Company, a current ap-
       pellee in this appeal, which serviced the mortgage, and two attor-
       neys who represent Red Stick in the pending foreclosure action and
       are also named appellees.
              In 2021, after amending and ﬁling four answers in the fore-
       closure action, DeBoskey moved for leave to amend his answer to
       include a counterclaim against the appellees for violations of the
       FDCPA and the FCCPA. The state circuit court denied his motion
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       4                      Opinion of the Court                  23-11898

       for leave to amend, explaining that DeBoskey failed to show suﬃ-
       cient cause to permit the ﬁling of a ﬁfth answer and new counter-
       claim in an action that had been pending for over ﬁve years.
               While the foreclosure action remained pending, DeBoskey
       ﬁled the federal suit, raising the same FDCPA claim against appel-
       lees that the state court had prohibited him from raising in the fore-
       closure action. On January 5, 2023, approximately three months
       after DeBoskey ﬁled the federal action, the state circuit court en-
       tered an order setting the foreclosure action for trial on February 8,
       2023. Six days later, DeBoskey ﬁled an amended complaint in the
       federal court action, raising three claims that were all related to the
       foreclosure proceedings: (1) an FDCPA claim; (2) an FCCPA claim;
       and (3) a declaratory judgment action. The district court granted
       the appellees’ ﬁrst motion to dismiss but allowed DeBoskey to ﬁle
       a second amended complaint. Upon the appellees’ request for dis-
       missal of the second amended complaint, the district court ordered
       that it be granted and dismissed the case with prejudice.
                                            III.
                “A statute of limitations bar is ‘an aﬃrmative defense, and
       . . . plaintiﬀ[s] [are] not required to negate an aﬃrmative defense in
       [their] complaint.’” La Grasta v. First Union Sec., Inc., 358 F.3d 840,
       845 (11th Cir. 2004) (omission and alterations in original) (quoting
       Tregenza v. Great Am. Commc’ns Co., 12 F.3d 717, 718 (7th Cir. 1993)),
       abrogated on other grounds by Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544
       (2007). “[O]ur cases say that a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal on statute of
       limitations grounds is appropriate only if it is ‘apparent from the
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       23-11898                Opinion of the Court                           5

       face of the complaint’ that the claim is time-barred.” Id. (quoting
       Omar v. Lindsey, 334 F.3d 1246, 1251 (11th Cir. 2003)).
               An action alleging a violation of the FDCPA must be ﬁled
       “within one year from the date on which the violation occurs.” 15
       U.S.C. § 1692k(d). “The FDCPA limitations period begins to run
       on the date the alleged FDCPA violation actually happened.” Rot-
       kiske v. Klemm, 589 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 355, 360 (2019). An action
       alleging a violation of the FCCPA must be ﬁled “within 2 years af-
       ter the date the alleged violation occurred.” Fla. Stat. Ann.
       § 559.77(4).
               “A complaint is subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim
       if the allegations, taken as true, show the plaintiﬀ is not entitled to
       relief.” Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 215, 127 S. Ct. 910, 920 (2007). A
       complaint need not have “‘detailed factual allegations,” but it must
       have “more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-
       me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S. Ct. 1937,
       1949 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127
       S. Ct. 1955, 1966 (2007)). “A pleading that oﬀers ‘labels and conclu-
       sions’ or ‘a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action
       will not do.’ Nor does a complaint suﬃce if it tenders ‘naked as-
       sertion[s]’ devoid of ‘further factual enhancement.’” Id. (alteration
       in original) (citation omitted) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555,
       557, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 1966).
                                             IV.
              The record demonstrates that the district court did not err
       in dismissing DeBoskey’s complaint with prejudice. The district
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       6                      Opinion of the Court                 23-11898

       court explained that DeBoskey’s claims were untimely because he
       received service of the complaint in the foreclosure action in 2018
       and ﬁled the federal suit four years later. The district court noted
       that DeBoskey’s second amended complaint was almost identical
       to the ﬁrst amended complaint, and that DeBoskey’s attempts to
       skirt the statute of limitations in the FDCPA and FCCPA actions
       were unavailing. The district court further stated that DeBoskey
       failed to provide any facts to support his vague allegations, which
       amounted to nothing more than the appellees’ participation and
       maintenance of the foreclosure action. Thus, the district court dis-
       missed the second amended complaint with prejudice.
              We conclude, from the record, that the district court did not
       err by dismissing DeBoskey’s second amended complaint because
       it was either time-barred by the statute of limitations or failed to
       state a claim. The complaint could be interpreted two ways: the
       ﬁrst is that the complaint alleges that the appellees violated the
       FDCPA and the FCCPA in relation to the state court foreclosure
       proceedings. Although DeBoskey states on appeal that he did not
       allege that the ﬁling of the foreclosure action itself was a violation
       of the FDCPA and the FCCPA, he alleges that the appellees ﬁled
       papers and announced the false claims to third parties. This ap-
       pears to refer to that foreclosure action. Further, DeBoskey alleges
       that the appellees also made threats to foreclose his property, as-
       serted rights to enforce a lien on his property, and asserted rights
       to hold some interest in or against his property. These allegations
       refer to the foreclosure action and are time-barred because DeBos-
       key received service of the foreclosure action in 2018, which is
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       23-11898                Opinion of the Court                           7

       more than two years before the ﬁling of the second amended com-
       plaint.
               The second way that the complaint can be construed is that
       it alleges violations of the FDCPA and the FCCPA unrelated to the
       foreclosure action, as DeBoskey argues is the correct assertion in
       his complaint. However, if we construe the complaint this way, the
       district court’s order of dismissal would still be correct because the
       complaint failed to state a claim based on factual speciﬁcity. See
       Jones, 549 U.S. at 215, 127 S. Ct. at 920; Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.
       Ct. at 1949. DeBoskey did not reference in his complaint any spe-
       ciﬁc actions of the appellees other than the foreclosure suit and
       those actions within his general accusations relating to the mort-
       gage. As such, the district court properly dismissed his complaint
       because it contained “naked assertion[s]” devoid of “further factual
       enhancement.” Jones, 549 U.S. at 215; Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
             Accordingly, based on the aforementioned reasons, we af-
       ﬁrm the district court’s order dismissing DeBoskey’s complaint
       with prejudice.
              AFFIRMED.