James Ison v. Ethan Schulman

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: May 28, 2025
• Docket: 23-16219
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAY 28 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

No. 23-16219 JAMES J. ISON; ISON LAW FIRM, PC,

Plaintiffs - Appellants, D.C. No. 2:21-cv-01546-JAM-KJN v.

ETHAN P. SCHULMAN; et al., MEMORANDUM*

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California John A. Mendez, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted May 23, 2025** San Francisco, California

Before: BERZON, FRIEDLAND, and MENDOZA, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiffs James Ison and Ison Law Firm (“Plaintiffs”) appeal the district

court’s dismissal of their complaint without leave to amend. We have jurisdiction

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). 1 We review the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss de novo and the

district court’s denial of leave to amend for abuse of discretion. Knievel v. ESPN,

393 F.3d 1068, 1072 (9th Cir. 2005); Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir.

2000) (en banc).

1. Plaintiffs do not challenge the district court’s dismissal of claims

against former Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Judge Ethan Schulman, the

Judicial Council of California, and the Superior Court of California (“Judicial

Defendants”). “[O]n appeal, arguments not raised by a party in its opening brief

are deemed waived.” Smith v. Marsh, 194 F.3d 1045, 1052 (9th Cir. 1999).

Because Plaintiffs make no argument related to the dismissal of Judicial

Defendants, these arguments are waived.

2. The district court properly dismissed the claims against the remaining

Defendants based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine and claim preclusion.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine “prohibits a federal district court from

exercising subject matter jurisdiction over a suit that is a de facto appeal from a

state court judgment.” Reusser v. Wachovia Bank, 525 F.3d 855, 858–59 (9th Cir.

2008) (quoting Kougasian v. TMSL, Inc., 359 F.3d 1136, 1139 (9th Cir. 2004)).

The doctrine “applies only when the federal plaintiff both asserts as her injury legal

error or errors by the state court and seeks as her remedy relief from the state court

judgment.” Kougasian, 359 F.3d at 1140. Here, Plaintiffs essentially allege that

2 Judge Schulman’s rulings were so erroneous that he must have been colluding with

the other defendants. Plaintiffs point to no injury from the alleged conspiracy other

than Judge Schulman’s decisions. Plaintiffs’ conspiracy claims thus “assert[] as

[their] injury legal error or errors by the state court.” Id. As to remedy, Plaintiffs

suggest no monetary damages they suffered other than the attorneys’ fees and

contempt fine assessed by Judge Schulman. Plaintiffs thus functionally “seek[] as

[their] remedy relief from the state court judgment.” Id. For these reasons,

Plaintiffs’ conspiracy-based claims are barred under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

Plaintiffs’ remaining fraud allegations are merely a restatement of their

allegations in the state court action and are barred by claim preclusion. See Media

Rts. Techs., Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 922 F.3d 1014, 1020 (9th Cir. 2019) (“Claim

preclusion bars a party in successive litigation from pursuing claims that ‘were

raised or could have been raised in [a] prior action.’” (alteration in original)

(quoting Owens v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 244 F.3d 708, 713 (9th Cir.

2001))).

3. The district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing the

complaint without leave to amend. A district court may deny a plaintiff leave to

amend “if the proposed amendment is futile or would be subject to dismissal.”

Wheeler v. City of Santa Clara, 894 F.3d 1046, 1059 (9th Cir. 2018). Here,

3 Plaintiffs do not explain what additional facts they could include in an amended

complaint that would save their claims from dismissal.

AFFIRMED.