Adonica Wells v. MILA Incorporated

587 F. App'x 158
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 17, 2014
Docket14-40347
StatusUnpublished

This text of 587 F. App'x 158 (Adonica Wells v. MILA Incorporated) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Adonica Wells v. MILA Incorporated, 587 F. App'x 158 (5th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM: *

Adonica B. Wells appeals the district court’s dismissal of several claims against U.S. Bank National Association (“U.S. Bank”) and Ocwen Loan Servicing (“Ocwen”) in this wrongful foreclosure ac *160 tion. For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

I

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the appellant, as we must for the purposes of this appeal, the relevant facts are as follows. Adonica Wells executed a deed of trust and note on November 80, 2005, for property located at 3511 West Ridge Lane, Manvel, Texas 77578. The deed of trust and note were subsequently transferred to U.S. Bank who became the lender for the deed. Ocwen was the mortgage servicing agent for U.S. Bank. In January of 2013, Wells defaulted on the mortgage due to a decrease in her anticipated monthly income as a registered nurse. 1 At that time, Wells applied for a modification of her loan.

In a written statement, Ocwen indicated that it would not move ahead with a foreclosure as long as Ocwen received all the required documents for the modification application and as long as Wells met the eligibility requirements. In February 2013, Ocwen offered Wells a shared appreciation modification which required that Wells submit certain documents, make an initial payment, and make a timely trial period payment. Wells asserts that the approved modification offer increased her mortgage payments significantly. Wells states that, as a consequence, she discussed filing another modification application with Ocwen. Wells claims that Ocwen orally represented that she would receive another modification application immediately. Wells states that after a delay and after making repeated requests, she finally received the second modification application and submitted it to Ocwen prior to the foreclosure sale date.

Wells asserts that throughout the processing of her modification applications, an Ocwen representative orally assured her that her home was not in jeopardy of foreclosure. In May 2013, Ocwen notified Wells in writing that her home would be sold in a foreclosure sale in July 2013. Wells’s home was ultimately sold to U.S. Bank in a foreclosure sale in July 2013.

Wells filed the instant action in Texas state court, generally contesting the validity of the foreclosure on her home. U.S. Bank and Ocwen removed the ease to federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. The causes of action asserted in Wells’s complaint included claims of wrongful foreclosure, common law fraud, and statutory fraud in a real estate transaction. U.S. Bank and Ocwen moved to dismiss Wells’s complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district court converted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Wells’s -wrongful foreclosure claim to a motion for summary judgment pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(d). The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants for Wells’s wrongful foreclosure claim and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss for the remaining claims in Wells’s complaint. Wells pursues the instant appeal pro se.

II

We review the district court’s order granting summary judgment de novo, viewing all facts and evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant. Aryain v. Wal-Mart Stores Texas LP, 534 F.3d 473, 478 (5th Cir.2008). Summary judgment is appropriate when, after consider *161 ing the pleadings, discovery, and affidavits, there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Id.; Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(a). The party opposing summary judgment is “required to identify specific evidence in the record, and to articulate the ‘precise manner’ in which that evidence supports] their claim.” Forsyth v. Barr, 19 F.3d 1527, 1537 (5th Cir.1994).

We also review the district court’s order granting a motion to dismiss de novo, accepting all well-pleaded facts as true and viewing those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Warren v. Chesapeake Exploration, L.L.C., 759 F.3d 413, 415 (5th Cir.2014). To survive a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff must present sufficient factual allegations to “raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). For claims of fraud, dismissal is appropriate where the plaintiff fails to state with particularity the circumstances constituting the alleged fraud. Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b).

Ill

On appeal, Wells contests the summary judgment dismissal of her wrongful foreclosure claim, contending for the first time that defects in the foreclosure proceedings caused the selling price to be grossly inadequate. Claims raised for the first time on appeal are generally not reviewed in the absence of “exceptional circumstances where injustice might otherwise result.” Carson Products Co. v. Califano, 594 F.2d 453, 457 (5th Cir.1979). Wells’s conclusory allegation of a grossly inadequate selling price, even when considered on its merits, does not survive summary judgment given the absence of any evidence in the record to establish it as fact. We therefore affirm the district court’s summary judgment dismissal of this claim.

Wells also argues that her claim of common law fraud was erroneously dismissed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Wells states that she relied upon oral statements from an Ocwen representative instructing her to not make any payments until her second modification application was approved. Wells further asserts that the Ocwen representative communicated these instructions to her in bad faith. The district court found that Wells’s allegations did not meet the specificity requirements for pleading a claim of fraud under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). We agree.

“Rule 9(b) requires that plaintiffs plead enough facts to illustrate the ‘who, what, when, where, and how1 of the alleged fraud.” Carroll v. Fort James Corp., 470 F.3d 1171

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Related

Forsyth v. Barr
19 F.3d 1527 (Fifth Circuit, 1994)
Aryain v. Wal-Mart Stores Texas LP
534 F.3d 473 (Fifth Circuit, 2008)
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly
550 U.S. 544 (Supreme Court, 2007)
Charles Warren v. Chesapeake Exploration, L
759 F.3d 413 (Fifth Circuit, 2014)
Anderton v. Cawley
378 S.W.3d 38 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2012)
Carson Products Co. v. Califano
594 F.2d 453 (Fifth Circuit, 1979)

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Bluebook (online)
587 F. App'x 158, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/adonica-wells-v-mila-incorporated-ca5-2014.