Jackson v. Santander Consumer USA

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
• Decided: June 15, 2026
• Docket: 24-3175
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT June 15, 2026 _________________________________ Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court CHAPTER KRIS JACKSON,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. No. 24-3175 (D.C. No. 2:23-CV-02403-DDC-TJJ) SANTANDER CONSUMER USA INC., a (D. Kan.) Texas for profit Corporation; CHRYSLER CAPITAL, a subsidiary of Santander Consumer USA, Inc.; T.E.N. INVESTMENTS INC., a Missouri for Profit Corporation; SOAVE AUTOMOTIVE GROUP, INC., a Missouri for Profit Corporation; ARISTOCRAT MOTORS – MERCEDES BENZ, a for profit business; MARION BATTAGLIA, an Individual and CEO and President of Aristocrat Motors; ROBERT HELLWEG, an Individual and Senior Vice President/Marketing Director of Aristocrat Motors; ANGELA LEWITZKE, an Individual and Controller/Secretary of Aristocrat Motors; STEPHANIE ANNE TURNER, a/k/a Sephanie Gador, an Individual and Finance Manager of Aristocrat Motors, Ten Investment, Soave employee; KAYCE JONES, an Individual and Title Specialist of Aristocrat Motors / Soave Automotive Group; DOES 1-50; JANE DOE; JOHN DOES,

Defendants - Appellees. _________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined *

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 2

_________________________________

Before BACHARACH, KELLY, and EID, Circuit Judges. _________________________________

Appellant Chapter Kris Jackson bought a used car. Sometime later, she

discovered a host of alleged problems with her car’s title and loan documents. Ms.

Jackson filed a lawsuit in state court, and then—just two days later—she filed

another lawsuit in federal court. Her claims in both suits were premised on the same

underlying car purchase.

The district court stayed the federal case pending resolution of the concurrent

state-court case under the Colorado River doctrine. Ms. Jackson appeals pro se 1

from this stay order. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

BACKGROUND

The operative complaint alleges that Ms. Jackson visited Aristocrat Motors 2 in

December 2018 to purchase a used Porsche Cayenne. Her experience with the

dealership was reportedly less than stellar. Prior to the sale, Aristocrat Motors

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 1 We construe a pro se litigant’s papers liberally. See Hall v. Bellmon, 935 F.2d 1106, 1110 (10th Cir. 1991). But we don’t “serv[e] as the litigant’s attorney in constructing arguments and searching the record.” Garrett v. Selby Connor Maddux & Janer, 425 F.3d 836, 840 (10th Cir. 2005). 2 Appellee T.E.N. Investments, Inc. operates as a car dealer under the trade name “Aristocrat Motors.” See Aplee. Br. at 3 & n.1.

2 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 3

falsified the car’s title and mileage documents. It then railroaded Ms. Jackson

through the sale process—forging her signature on loan paperwork, failing to provide

necessary written disclosures, and producing a different Porsche Cayenne than the

one she had selected. Despite her misgivings, Ms. Jackson took possession of the car

and began making payments on her auto loan. But in August 2021, after discovering

the full extent of Aristocrat Motors’ alleged fraud, she stopped making payments.

Debt collection efforts ensued, which negatively impacted Ms. Jackson’s credit.

In January 2022, Ms. Jackson filed a lawsuit regarding the botched car

purchase in the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas. She filed a second lawsuit

two days later—premised on the same dispute—in the U.S. District Court for the

Western District of Missouri.

In March 2023, Appellees moved to dismiss or stay the federal case for lack of

personal jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, Colorado River abstention, or improper

venue (the “First Dismissal Motion”). Ms. Jackson filed a response opposing most of

the grounds argued in the First Dismissal Motion, but not the improper venue

argument. Instead, Ms. Jackson separately moved to transfer the case to the U.S.

District Court for the District of Kansas. Noting the parties’ apparent agreement that

venue was mislaid in Missouri, the district court granted both Ms. Jackson’s transfer

motion and the venue-related portion of the First Dismissal Motion. The federal case

was thus transferred to Kansas. At that time, the First Dismissal Motion remained

pending as to its other, unreached arguments.

3 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 4

More than a year later—after a lengthy stay occasioned by involuntary

bankruptcy proceedings against Ms. Jackson—the district court denied the First

Dismissal Motion “without prejudice to refiling.” R. vol. 1 at 403. The court

observed that Appellees’ “arguments about personal jurisdiction in Missouri [were]

moot[ed]” by the case’s transfer to Kansas. Id. But as before, the other arguments in

the First Dismissal Motion were left unreached.

In July 2024, Appellees renewed their motion to dismiss or stay the federal

case, this time on the alternative grounds of improper claim-splitting and Colorado

River abstention (the “Colorado River Motion”). 3 Ms. Jackson moved to strike the

Colorado River Motion, casting it as an “impermissible attempt to relitigate the same

issues” raised in the First Dismissal Motion. R. vol. 2 at 249. However, she did not

file any substantive response to the Colorado River Motion, nor did she address the

motion’s merits in other papers. See id. at 442 n.10.

On November 18, 2024, the district court granted the Colorado River Motion.

The court concluded that the state and federal actions involved “substantially the

same parties litigat[ing] substantially the same issues in different forums” and, thus,

were parallel cases. Id. at 425 (internal quotation marks omitted); see id. at 430. It

3 Under the Colorado River doctrine, a federal court may—in the interests of efficiency, economy, and “wise judicial administration”—stay or dismiss a case that is duplicative of a pending state court proceeding. Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976) (brackets omitted); see id. at 817–19.

4 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 5

further concluded that the balance of relevant factors 4 favored deference to the state

proceedings. Id. at 440. The federal case was thus stayed and administratively

closed pending the outcome of the state-court case.

This appeal timely followed.

DISCUSSION

I. Appellate Jurisdiction

We address the substance of the appeal below. But before we do, we first

identify which matters are properly before us on appeal—and which ones are not.

4 The Colorado River doctrine involves analysis of eight nonexclusive factors to decide whether “exceptional circumstances” warrant a federal court’s deference to parallel state proceedings: 1. the possibility that one of the two courts has exercised jurisdiction over property 2. the inconvenience from litigating in the federal forum 3. the avoidance of piecemeal litigation 4. the sequence in which the courts obtained jurisdiction 5. the vexatious or reactive nature of either case 6. the applicability of federal law 7. the potential for the state-court action to provide an effective remedy for the federal plaintiff 8. the possibility of forum shopping. Wakaya Perfection, LLC v. Youngevity Int’l, Inc., 910 F.3d 1118, 1121–22 (10th Cir. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted).

5 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 6

In the opening brief, Ms. Jackson asserts between eight and twenty-five

separate claims of error. 5 Many (if not most) of them are directed to the merits of

filings that the district court had not yet disposed of, and were thus left pending,

when the Colorado River stay entered. These include:

• The motion to strike the Colorado River Motion;

• An objection to the magistrate judge’s order denying her motion to stay and compel arbitration;

• A renewed motion to stay and compel arbitration based on newly discovered claims;

• An objection to the magistrate judge’s order denying her motion to modify the scheduling order, to the extent she sought additional time to move for leave to file an amended complaint;

• A motion for the magistrate judge’s recusal;

• An objection to the magistrate judge’s order denying (i) her motions to disqualify Appellees’ counsel, and (ii) her motion for appointment of counsel as accommodation for her disabilities; and

• A motion to transfer the case to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California or, alternatively, to dismiss on ground of forum non conveniens.

Ms. Jackson’s notice of appeal, however, is much narrower. In it, the sole matter she

asks us to review is the district court’s order granting the Colorado River Motion.

See R. vol. 2 at 444.

5 More specifically, the “Statement of Issues” portion of the opening brief lists eight issues, see Aplt. Br. at 15–16, but the “Arguments” portion nominally includes twenty-five issues, see id. at 20–48.

6 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 7

The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure require a notice of appeal to

“designate the judgment—or the appealable order—from which the appeal is taken.”

Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B). “[T]hose designations circumscribe the scope of our

appellate review.” HCG Platinum, LLC v. Preferred Prod. Placement Corp.,

873 F.3d 1191, 1199 n.8 (10th Cir. 2017). In this case, the notice of appeal expressly

designates the order granting the Colorado River Motion—and nothing more. To be

sure, this is not the end of our Rule 3 inquiry. “[W]e construe [the] designation

requirement liberally,” Williams v. Akers, 837 F.3d 1075, 1078 (10th Cir. 2016), and

we may maintain jurisdiction so long as “other papers filed within the time period for

filing the notice of appeal provide the functional equivalent of what Rule 3 requires,”

Denver & Rio Grande W. R.R. Co. v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 119 F.3d 847, 849

(10th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, the notice of appeal

(or its functional equivalent) “encompasses all orders that, for purposes of appeal,

merge into the designated judgment or appealable order,” such that those orders need

not be expressly designated. Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(a); see McBride v. CITGO

Petroleum Corp., 281 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2002) (“An appeal from a final

judgment usually draws into question all prior non final orders and all rulings which

produced the judgement.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

Here, from her filings, it is evident that Ms. Jackson intended to seek review of

the undesignated motions and objections listed above, 6 and that those matters would

6 Within the 30-day period for filing the notice of appeal, see Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(1)(A), Ms. Jackson filed an “Appellant Statement of Issues on Appeal” 7 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 8

have “merged” into the properly designated Colorado River Motion. So, Ms.

Jackson’s failure to designate the above-listed motions does not hamper our ability to

review them.

But other problems emerge. As Ms. Jackson herself admits, the district court

had not taken action on any of the above-listed motions before the Colorado River

stay was imposed. 7 Ms. Jackson cannot designate orders that the district court has

not yet issued. See Bogle v. Orange Cnty. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 162 F.3d 653, 661

(11th Cir. 1998) (“Rule 3(c) requires that a notice of appeal designate an existent

judgment or order, not one that is merely expected or that is, or should be, within the

appellant’s contemplation when the notice of appeal is filed.”). Nor can she

designate objections to magistrate judge decisions that the district court has not yet

reviewed. See Hutchinson v. Pfeil, 105 F.3d 562, 565 (10th Cir. 1997) (“Because the

district court has not yet ruled on Mr. Hutchinson’s objections, we have no

jurisdiction over these issues.”). Moreover, even if the district court had ruled on

these matters, several of them would have resulted in nonfinal orders that are not

requesting review of the above-listed motions and objections, see generally Dkt. No. 16. While we don’t require pro se litigants to file a docketing statement, see 10th Cir. R. 3.4(A), we liberally construe this document as such. 7 See Aplt. Br. at 34–35; see id. at 33 (arguing the district court failed to rule on motion to strike the Colorado River motion), 37 (same, as to objection to magistrate judge’s denial of request for appointed counsel), 39 (same, as to objection to magistrate judge’s denial of request to amend complaint), 40 (same, as to motion for magistrate judge’s recusal), 40–41 (same, as to motion to transfer or dismiss, along with the standing arguments contained therein), 45 (same, as to arbitration-related motion and objection), 47 (same, as to motion to disqualify Appellees’ counsel).

8 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 9

immediately appealable in any event. See Richardson-Merrell, Inc. v. Koller,

472 U.S. 424, 429–31 (1985) (explaining that, unless the collateral order doctrine

applies, § 1291 only grants appellate jurisdiction over “final decisions of the district

court”).

All of this to say—the order granting the Colorado River Motion marks the

boundary line of our jurisdiction. The other above-listed motions and objections fall

outside this line. We therefore will not consider arguments directed to the merits of

filings that are undesignated, unresolved, and in many cases, unreviewable before

final judgment.

II. Colorado River Motion

A. Merits

Having defined the scope of our review, we proceed there now. Broadly

speaking, Ms. Jackson argues the district court abused its discretion by imposing the

Colorado River stay. According to her, the state and federal lawsuits are not parallel

because they assert distinct claims for relief, and application of the Colorado River

factors reveals no exceptional circumstances warranting deference to the state

proceedings. Appellees, meanwhile, point out that Ms. Jackson did not preserve her

merits arguments opposing the Colorado River Motion below, and she does not make

any plain-error arguments now—thus precluding appellate review. We agree with

Appellees.

“When a party fails to raise an argument below, we typically treat the

argument as forfeited.” United States v. Leffler, 942 F.3d 1192, 1196 (10th Cir.

9 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 10

2019). “And when an appellant raises a forfeited argument on appeal, we will

reverse only if the appellant can satisfy our rigorous plain-error test.” Id. However,

if the appellant “fails to preserve an issue and also fails to make a plain-error

argument on appeal, we ordinarily deem the issue waived (rather than merely

forfeited) and decline to review the issue at all—for plain error or otherwise.” Id.

Here, Ms. Jackson’s opposition to the Colorado River Motion comes too late.

Although she moved to strike the motion as improperly successive, 8 she did not file

any substantive response to it. The district court therefore never passed upon the

arguments she makes now. What’s more, she does not argue that the district court’s

application of the Colorado River doctrine amounted to plain error. The opening

brief’s only engagement with this standard consists in one sentence: “Appellant

8 For the reasons set forth above, Ms. Jackson’s motion to strike the Colorado River Motion is not properly before us. Still, she suggests the district court erred in taking up the Colorado River Motion because the issues therein had already been raised and ruled upon in the First Dismissal Motion. See Aplt. Br. at 35. To the extent this argument affects the merits of the Colorado River Motion—which is properly before us—we disagree that the Colorado River Motion was improperly successive and subject to strike. As the district court correctly explained: When the Western District of Missouri transferred this case, defendants’ [First Dismissal Motion] remained pending. Our court[,] [the District of Kansas,] dismissed the pending motion without prejudice to refiling. Our court reasoned that portions of [the First Dismissal Motion] argued about defendants’ personal jurisdiction in Missouri, an issue now moot after the transfer. Plaintiff understands this as the court denying the defendants’ motion. But it wasn’t. The court never reached the merits of defendants’ motion. And so, the court explicitly allowed defendants to refile. For the first time here, the court reaches the merits [in] defendants’ [Colorado River Motion]. The motion is not, therefore, redundant, and not subject to strike. R. vol. 2 at 442 n.10 (citations omitted).

10 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 11

requests plain error review.” Aplt. Br. at 20 (emphasis omitted). This single line,

devoid of further analysis, comes nowhere close to explaining how the court’s ruling

involved “(1) error, (2) that is plain, which (3) affects substantial rights, and which

(4) seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial

proceedings.” United States v. Nickl, 427 F.3d 1286, 1298 (10th Cir. 2005).

Meanwhile, the reply brief 9 does not advance any plain-error arguments—but it does

claim that, in substance, sections XX, XXII, and XXIV of the opening brief satisfy

the requisite plain-error elements. See Aplt. Reply Br. at 26–30. They do not. And

even if they did, those sections are directed to the merits of Ms. Jackson’s arbitration-

related motions which, as we have explained, are not properly before us on appeal.

So, as to the Colorado River Motion, nothing in her appellate briefing has

“successfully run the gauntlet created by our rigorous plain-error standard of review.”

United States v. Rosales-Miranda, 755 F.3d 1253, 1258 (10th Cir. 2014) (internal

quotation marks omitted).

At bottom, Ms. Jackson’s “failure to argue for plain error and its application

on appeal . . . surely marks the end of the road for [her] argument for reversal not

first presented to the district court.” Richison v. Ernest Grp., Inc., 634 F.3d 1123,

1131 (10th Cir. 2011). We therefore decline to review her waived arguments

regarding the district court’s application of the Colorado River doctrine.

9 We grant Ms. Jackson’s motion to file her amended, type-volume compliant reply brief out of time, and we have carefully reviewed the arguments contained in the reply brief attached to that motion. See Dkt. No. 72.

11 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 12

B. Related Issues

Separately, Ms. Jackson argues the district court abused its discretion by

imposing the Colorado River stay without first ruling on her other, above-listed

motions and objections. We disagree. Neither the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

nor any relevant, binding case law 10 require a district court to take up certain motions

before staying a case. To the contrary, every federal court has inherent power “to

control the disposition of the causes on its docket.” Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S.

248, 254 (1936). And under that authority, the district court had discretion to

10 Ms. Jackson quotes Walker v. City of Orem, 451 F.3d 1139, 1150 (10th Cir. 2006), as stating that a “district court must ‘consider all pending motions and develop an adequate record’ before dismissal.” Aplt. Br. at 33. Walker does not include this language, nor any resembling it. Likewise, she cites United States v. Houston, 792 F.3d 663, 669 (6th Cir. 2015), for the proposition that “failure to address pending motions constitutes procedural error.” Id. Houston contains no such proposition. Other similarly problematic citations appear elsewhere in the opening brief. We suspect these citations arise from artificial intelligence (“AI”) “‘hallucination[s],’” which occur “where an AI large language model generates an output that is fictional, inaccurate, or nonsensical.” Jones v. Kankakee Cnty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 164 F.4th 967, 969 (7th Cir. 2026). In fairness, Ms. Jackson has disclosed her reliance on “AI-based tools” to help her “prepare written submissions” in this case. Dkt. No. 72 at 2. But this disclosure does not excuse the requirement that “all litigants—represented and unrepresented—must read their filings and take reasonable care to avoid misrepresentations, factual and legal.” Jones, 164 F.4th at 970; accord 10th Cir. R. 46.5(B)(2). Furthermore, Ms. Jackson’s use of fabricated case law is particularly egregious, as multiple courts have recently put her on notice that this litigation conduct is unacceptable. See R. vol. 2 at 262–63; see also Jackson v. BOK Fin. Corp., No. 25-cv-00297-SHE-SH, 2025 WL 2755868, at *4–6 (N.D. Okla. Sept. 29, 2025) (unpublished). At this time, we decline to sanction Ms. Jackson. But we warn her that citation of hallucinated case law in future filings before this court—in this case, or any others—will subject her to sanctions.

12 Appellate Case: 24-3175 Document: 78-1 Date Filed: 06/15/2026 Page: 13

determine the order in which to consider Ms. Jackson’s pending motions. See, e.g.,

U.S. Abatement Corp. v. Mobil Expl. & Prod. U.S., Inc., 39 F.3d 556, 560

(5th Cir. 1994). We will not substitute our judgment for the district court’s regarding

such matters of docket management.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s order granting the

Colorado River Motion. We also GRANT Ms. Jackson’s motion for leave to file her

amended, type-volume compliant reply brief out of time (Dkt. No. 72). All other

motions pending before us are DENIED AS MOOT (Dkt. Nos. 44, 67, 70).

Entered for the Court

Allison H. Eid Circuit Judge